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LAUDA    SIGN 


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The  Church   Club   Lectures. 


Uniform  red  cloth.     Price,  per  volume,  50c.  net; 
by  £ost,  doc. 

1888.— THE  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING  OF  THE 
EARLY  CHURCH,  as  a  Basis  for  the  Re-Union  of 
Christendom.  By  Bishops  Coxe  and  Seymour,  and  the 
Rev.  Drs.  Richey,  Garrison,  and  Egar. 

1889.-THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES. 
Sketches  of  its  Continuous  History  from  the  Earliest 
Times  to  the  Restoration.  By  Bishops  Doane  and 
Kingdon,  and  the  Rev.  Drs.  Hart,  Allen,  and  Gailor. 

1890.— THE  POST -RESTORATION  PERIOD  OF 
THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  BRITISH  ISLES.  In 
continuation  of  the  volume  for  1889.  By  Bishops  Perry 
and  McLaren,  Ven.  Dr.  Davenport,  and  the  Rev.  Drs. 
Mortimer  and  Richey 

1891.— CATHOLIC  DOGMA.  The  Fundamental  Truths 
of  Revealed  Religion.  By  Bishops  Littlejohn  and 
Sessums,  the  Rev  Drs.  Huntington,  Mortimer,  and 
Elliott,  and  the  R«v   Prof.  Walpole. 

1892.— THE  CHURCH'S  MINISTRY  OF  GRACE. 
By  Bishops  Garrett  and  Grafton,  the  Very  Rev.  Dr. 
Robbins.  and  the  Rev.  Drs.  Clark  and  Fiskk. 

1893.-THE  SIX  OECUMENICAL  COUNCILS  OF 
THE  UNDIVIDED  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.  By 
Bishop  Leonard,  th«  Rev.  Drs.  Dix  Elmrndorf  and 
Riley,  and  the  Rev.  R.  M.  Benson  and  W.  McGarvey. 

1894.— THE  RIGHTS  AND  PRETENSIONS  OF  THE 
ROMAN  SEE.  By  Bishops  Paret  and  Hall,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Waterman,  and  the  Rev.  Greenough  White, 
Robert  Ritchie,  and  Algernon  Sidney  Crapsey. 

1895.— CHRISTIAN  UNITY  AND  THE  BISHOPS' 
DECLARATION.  By  Bishop  Gailor,  the  Rev.  Drs. 
Body  and  Chambr£,  Ven.  Charles  S.  Olmsted,  and  the 
Rev.  Francis  S.  Hall. 


E.  &  J.  B.  YOUNG  &  CO. 
Cooper  Union,  Fourth  Ave.,  New  York. 


Lauda  Sion 


^  NOV  12  1932  ^ 


OR 


The  Liturgical  Hymns  of  the 
Church 


Xectures 

DELIVERED   IN    1896   UNDER   THE   AUSPICES    OF   THE 
CHURCH    CLUB   OF   NEW  YORK 

Uew  \-U^  Church  1 


NEW    YORK 

E.  cSc    J.    B.  YOUNG    &    CO. 

COOPER    UNION,    FOURTH    AVENUE 
1896 


. 


Copyright,  1896 
By  The  Church  Club  of  New  York 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   I. 

THE   PSALTER  .... 


By   the    Rev,    John   P.    Peters,    D.D.,    Rector  of   St. 
Michael's  Church,  New   York. 

LECTURE   II. 

THE  HYMNS  OF  THE  EUCHARIST  .     ...     49 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  Arthur  C.  A.  Hall,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Vermont. 

LECTURE   III. 

THE   HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY   OFFICES       ...  79 

By  the  Rt.  Rev.  John  Hazen   White,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Indiana. 

LECTURE   IV. 

THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL  .  .  .  .  121 

By   the  Rt.    Rev.    Henry    C.    Potter,    D.D.,   LL.D., 
D.C.Z.,  Bishop  of  New  York. 

LECTURE   V. 

TE  DEUM   LAUDAMUS 1 63 

By  the  Rev.    William  R.  Huntington,  D.D.,  Rector  of 
Grace  Church,  ATew   York. 


£be  psalter  in  tbe  3ewieb  Cburcb 
ant>  in  tbe  Cbrtetian  Cburcb* 


LECTURE  I. 

REV.  JOHN  P.  PETERS,  D.D., 
Rector  of  St.   Michael's  Church,  New  York. 

THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 
AND  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

There  is  a  difficulty  that  meets  us  in  the  study 
of  the  Hebrew  Psalms  as  poetry  which  does  not 
meet  us  in  the  study  of  the  classical  productions 
of  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  much  less  in  the 
study  of  the  masterpieces  of  modern  European 
lyric  poetry.  It  is  possible  to  render  into  Eng- 
lish verse  a  Spanish,  or  a  French,  or  a  German, 
or  even  a  Latin  or  a  Greek  poem,  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  reader  who  does  not  understand 
these  languages  may  obtain  a  fair  conception 
of  the  sound  and  metre,  as  well  as  of  the  sense 
of  the  original,  because  the  metrical  canons  of 
these  languages,  and  the  thought  processes  of 
the  people  who  use  them,  have  some  resemblance 
to  our  own.  But  with  Hebrew  the  case  is  differ- 
ent.   The  genius  of  the  language  is  entirely  un- 


4      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

like  that  of  our  own;  the  thought  processes  of 
the  people  who  used  it  are  altogether  alien  to 
us,  and  the  metrical  system  is  quite  different 
from  anything  which  we  recognize  as  constitut- 
ing poetical  form,  if,  possibly,  we  except  some 
of  the  much-admired  and  much-scoffed-at  poetry 
of  the  school  of  Walt  Whitman. 

The  essential  form  feature  of  Hebrew  poetry 
is  not  measure,  nor  rhyme,  nor  even,  as  in  An- 
glo-Saxon poetry,  alliteration,  but  parallelism, 
that  is,  the  repetition  in  form  or  substance,  or 
both,  of  something  already  said.  Not  that  meas- 
ure, or  rhyme,  or  alliteration  are  unknown  to 
Hebrew  poetry,  but  that  none  of  these  is  formu- 
lated; none  plays  an  essential  part  in  the  concep- 
tion of  that  poetry. 

Hebrew  poetry  is  rhythmical,  and  it  pleases 
the  ear  by  the  repetition  of  similar  sounds,  but 
its  rhythm  is  too  irregular  to  be  metre  or  to  be 
measured  by  quantities  and  syllables,  and  its 
repetition  of  similar  sounds  is  neither  rhyme  nor 
alliteration,  being  quite  without  rule.  More- 
over, the  rhythm  and  the  assonance  are  subsid- 
iary to  the  parallelism  of  line  with  line,  which  is 
the  only  approximately  regular  feature  of  He- 
brew poetry.  But  even  in  its  treatment  of  par- 
allelism Hebrew  poetry  never  developed  a  real 


AND   IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  5 

system  of  prosody,  but  always  maintained  its 
primitive  character,  unhampered  by  fixed  rules. 
So  Ewald  says:  "  The  old  Hebrew  poetry,  if  not 
so  rich  and  varied  as  that  of  the  Indians  and 
Greeks,  has  on  the  other  hand  a  simplicity  and 
transparency  hardly  to  be  found  elsewhere,  a  nat- 
ural sublimity  which  as  yet  knows  little  of  art, 
and  even  where  art  comes  into  play  lets  it  remain 
as  it  were  unconscious  and  careless.  Compared 
with  the  poetry  of  other  ancient  peoples,  it  ap- 
pears as  of  a  yet  more  simple  and  youthful  age 
of  mankind,  overflowing  with  an  internal  fulness 
and  grace,  and  as  yet  but  little  troubled  about 
external  ornament  and  nice  artistic  law."  *  But 
in  quoting  these  words  of  Ewald's,  and  calling 
attention  to  the  artlessness  and  lack  of  form  of 
Hebrew  poetry,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  is 
therefore  lacking  in  beauty.  So  far  is  this  from 
being  the  case  that  some  of  the  Hebrew  lyrics 
are  among  the  most  beautiful  ever  composed 
in  any  tongue.    Indeed,  there  have  been  literary 

*  It  may  be  said  in  passing,  that  since  Ewald's  day  we  have 
learned  that  the  Babylonians  and  Egyptians  both  composed  their 
poetry  on  the  same  model  as  the  Hebrews,  and,  as  far  as  we 
know,  these  are  the  only  three  peoples  which  have  made  parallel- 
ism the  essential  feature  of  poetry,  treating  rhyme,  metre,  alliter- 
ation and  assonance  as  subsidiary  features  only. 


6      THE   PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CIICRCH 

critics  who  have  claimed  that  a  few  of  the  gems 
of  Hebrew  lyric  song,  such  as  the  forty-second 
Psalm,  for  instance,  "  Like  as  the  hart  desireth 
the  water  brooks,  so  longeth  my  soul  after  thee, 
O  God,"  are  superior  to  any  lyric  poetry  ever 
written,  not  excepting  that  of  the  Greeks. 

Because  Hebrew  poetry  thus  remained  always 
near  its  sources,  therefore  it  did  not  develop  the 
more  elaborate  poetical  genera,  such  as  the 
drama  and  the  epos — although  we  have  the  be- 
ginnings of  both — clinging  rather  to  song  po- 
etry and  to  proverbs.  Instead  of  the  epic  poem 
we  have  the  tale  told  in  prose  interspersed  with 
songs.  Instead  of  the  drama  we  have  merely 
a  combination  of  lyric  and  didactic  verses.  Even 
the  prophets  began  to  prophesy  in  song.  Later 
they  developed  a  sort  of  recitative  rhythm,  and 
some  fell  into  prose;  but  the  recitative  rhythm, 
and  even  the  prose,  were  always  varied  with  lyr- 
ical outbursts. 

Relatively  speaking,  but  a  small  portion  of 
Hebrew  song  poetry  has  come  down  to  us.  Wo 
have  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  body  of  pop- 
ular secular  song  poetry  which  has  been  almost 
entirely  lost,  only  a  few  small  fragments  hav- 
ing been  preserved  to  us,  such  as  the  Song  of 
Songs;  the  forty-fifth  Psalm,  which  is  a  wedding 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH,  7 

hymn;  the  riddles  of  Samson;  a  few  snatches  of 
harvest  songs  preserved  by  the  prophets;  and  a 
few  folk  songs,  battle  songs,  and  dirges  scat- 
tered here  and  there  through  the  historical  and 
prophetical  books.  The  names  or  first  lines  of 
a  few  popular  songs  are  preserved  in  the  head- 
ings of  certain  psalms,  which  were  appointed  to 
be  sung  to  the  tunes  of  those  songs.  So  the 
twenty-second  Psalm  is  set  to  the  "  Hind  of  the 
Dawn;  "  the  forty-fifth  Psalm  is  set  to  "  Lilies;  " 
the  fifty-sixth  Psalm  to  "  The  Dove  of  the  Distant 
Terebinths;"  the  fifty-eighth,  fifty-ninth,  and 
some  others  to  "  Destroy  Not,"  a  well-known 
harvest  song,  to  which  we  also  find  references  in 
the  prophets;  the  sixtieth  to  "  Lily,  a  Testi- 
mony;" the  eightieth  to  "  Lilies,  a  Testimony." 
We  have  a  curious  and  interesting  case  of  this 
preservation  of  the  titles  of  old  songs  in  the  sixty- 
eighth  Psalm,  verses  12  to  14,  in  the  Prayer  Book 
version.  As  they  stand,  these  verses,  while  each 
sentence  is  sufficiently  intelligible  in  itself,  make 
no  sense,  and  have  no  connection  either  with 
what  precedes  or  what  follows.  The  preceding 
verse  reads:  "The  Lord  gave  the  word:  great 
was  the  company  of  the  preachers,"  or,  to  render 
literally,  "  women  bearing  good  tidings."  The 
following  verses  read  literally  as  follows: 


8      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

"  Kings  of  hosts  flee,  they  flee;  while  house- 
wives divide  the  spoil." 

"  If  ye  dwell  among  dungheaps." 

"  Dove's  wings  covered  with  silver, 
Her  pinions  with  glittering  gold." 

"  When  the  Almighty  scattered  kings  there- 
in." 

"  It  snoweth  in  Zalmon." 
Each  of  these  separate  and  unconnected  sen- 
tences I  take  to  be  the  first  line  or  title  of  a  song, 
one  or  all  of  which  may  be  sung  at  this  point 
in  this  great  processional  hymn.  Accordingly, 
we  have  here  by  my  count  five  first-lines  or  titles 
of  songs. 

But  almost  all  of  the  lyric  poetry  which  has 
been  preserved  to  us  is  religious.  It  was  pre- 
served and  handed  down  for  its  religious  char- 
acter and  its  spiritual  value.  The  lyric  poems 
which  we  have,  therefore,  are  hymns,  and  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  these  hymns  are  collected 
in  the  Psalter,  although  there  are  outside  of  the 
Psalter  not  a  few  fine  religious  lyrics,  such  as 
the  Song  of  Hannah,  the  Song  of  Moses,  the 
1 'raver  of  Habakkuk,  and  the  like. 

As  the  Psalter  is  a  hymn-book,  so  the  growth 
of  the  Psalter  may  be  compared  with  the  growth 
of  modern  hymn-books.     The  hymns  contained 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  9 

in  it  are  by  no  means  of  one  age,  and  in  the  case 
of  the  older  hymns  probably  none  have  come 
down  to  us  in  their  original  form.  A  psalm  like 
the  eighteenth,  which  contains  the  glorious  pict- 
ure of  Jehovah  riding  upon  the  storm,  and  mani- 
festing himself  in  hailstones  and  coals  of  fire,  in 
the  thunder  peal  and  lightning  flash,  and  which 
is  ascribed  to  David,  is  probably  to  be  referred 
to  David  as  the  original  composer,  but  is  not 
to  be  supposed  to  be  in  its  present  form  the  work 
of  David.  There  is  no  better  commentary  on 
the  growth  of  psalms  like  this  in  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish hymn-book  than  those  grand  hymns  of  the 
Christian  Church,  the  Te  Deum  and  the  Gloria 
in  Excelsis.  These  have  grown  and  changed, 
and  we  hardly  know  when  they  began,  nor  can 
we  say  that  in  their  present  form  they  were  com- 
posed by  any  one  man  and  scarcely  even  by  any 
one  age.  They  are  the  work  of  the  Church,  and 
the  same  is  true  of  the  great  hymns  of  the  Jew- 
ish Psalter,  or  at  least  of  the  hymns  contained 
in  the  earlier  books,  which  are  the  oldest  hymns. 
The  Psalter  as  we  now  have  it  was  the  hymn- 
book  of  the  second  Temple,  and  was  edited  as 
such,  that  is,  as  the  authorized  hymnal  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  probably  somewhere  about  150 
B.C.     But  there  was  behind  that  a  period  of 


IO      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

growth  of  something  like  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  This  completed  hymnal  contains  in  itself 
a  number  of  smaller  collections,  or  fragments 
of  collections.  It  is  divided  into  five  books, 
each  of  which  concludes  with  a  short  doxology, 
excepting  the  last,  which  closes  the  whole  col- 
lection with  a  grand  Psalm  of  Praise.  The  first 
book  ends  with  the  forty-first  Psalm;  the  second 
with  the  seventy-third;  the  third  with  the  eighty- 
ninth;  and  the  fourth  with  the  one  hundred  and 
sixth  Psalm.  In  our  Prayer  Book  Psalter,  and 
in  the  King  James  version  of  the  Bible,  the  dox- 
ologies  at  the  close  of  the  books  are  treated  as 
though  they  were  a  part  of  the  psalms  which 
they  follow,  and  the  divisions  into  books  are  not 
indicated.  In  the  Canterbury  version  the  di- 
visions into  books  are  marked,  and  the  doxol- 
ogies  are  separated  somewhat  from  the  psalms 
to  which  they  are  attached.  Here  is  the  dox- 
ology of  the  first  book,  which  is  printed  as  the 
13th  verse  of  the  forty-first  Psalm  in  the  Prayer 
Book  Psalter:  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  the  God 
of  Israel,  from  everlasting  and  to  everlasting. 
Amen,  and  Amen." 

This  division  into  five  books  is,  however,  late 
and  artificial,  designed  to  bring  the  Psalter  into 
harmony   with   the   Pentateuch,   and   docs  not 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  1 1 

altogether  represent  the  original  collections. 
There  are,  properly  speaking,  three  books  of  the 
psalms,  and  not  five,  the  second  and  third  books 
forming  properly  one  whole,  and  the  fourth  and 
fifth  books  another  whole.  The  earliest  psalms 
and  collections  of  psalms  are  contained  in  the 
first  and  the  second  and  third  books.  None  of 
these  collections,  as  we  now  have  it,  goes  back 
as  far  as  the  time  of  David,  and  probably  the 
earliest  does  not,  as  a  collection,  antedate  the 
Exile,  although,  as  already  pointed  out,  the 
basis  of  many  of  the  psalms  is  Davidic.  Before 
the  time  of  David  there  were,  I  make  no  doubt, 
liturgical  productions  of  psalm  character  in- 
tended for  purposes  of  worship,  but  of  these  none 
has  come  down  to  us,  unless  it  may  be  some 
scant  fragments,  such  as  the  Song  of  the  Ark, 
Numbers  x.  35,  36: 

"  Arise,  Jehovah;  scattered  be  Thine  enemies: 

.    And  let  Thy  haters  flee  before  Thee;  " 
the  priestly  benediction,  Numbers  vi.  24-27: 

"  Jehovah  bless  thee,  and  keep  thee; 
Jehovah  make  His  face  to  shine  upon  thee, 
and  be  gracious  unto  thee; 

"  Jehovah  lift  up  His  countenance  upon  thee, 
and  give  thee  peace;  " 

The  Song  of  Saul  and  David,  1  Samuel  viii.  7: 


12      THE  PSALTER  EY  THE  J  EWES  II  CHURCH 

"  Saul  hath  slain  his  thousands,  and  David  *his 
ten  thousands,"  etc. 

David  seems  in  some  way  to  have  organized 
the  religious  lyric  poetry  of  the  Hebrews,  so  that 
succeeding  generations  looked  to  him  as  the 
founder  of  psalmody.  Later  poets  paraphrased 
his  psalms,  or  portions  of  them,  or  composed 
new  psalms  in  the  Davidic  spirit  or  after  the 
Davidic  method,  somewhat  in  the  same  way 
in  which  modern  poets  have  taken  a  theme  from 
David  and  enlarged  upon  it,  building  an  entire 
poem  out  of  a  single  verse.  All  such  psalms  are 
naturally  referred  to  David. 

As  time  went  on,  the  liberty  of  referring 
psalms  to  his  name  was  extended.  We  see  t his 
in  the  Psalter  itself,  where  the  one  hundred  and 
eighth  Psalm,  a  composite  psalm  composed  by 
someone  out  of  portions  of  the  fifty-sixth  and 
sixtieth  Psalms,  is  called  a  Psalm  of  David. 
This  custom  is  still  better  illustrated  in  the  six- 
teenth chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Chronicles, 
where,  in  describing  the  instalment  of  the  Ark 
in  the  midst  of  the  tent  that  David  had  pitched 
for  it,  we  are  told  that  David  ordained  "  to  give 
thanks  unto  the  Lord  by  the  hand  of  Asaph  and 
his  brethren,"  and  a  long  psalm  is  given  there- 
with  which   is  entirely   composite,   made   up  of 


AND   IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  1 3 

portions  of  late  psalms,  namely,  the  one  hundred 
and  fifth,  the  ninety-sixth,  and  the  one  hundred 
and  sixth,  psalms  composed  many  centuries  after 
the  time  of  David,  and  not  ascribed  to  him  in 
the  Psalter.  Perhaps,  however,  the  most  in- 
structive example  of  this  method  of  composing 
psalms  under  the  name  of  David,  is  the  addi- 
tional Psalm,  one  hundred  and  fifty-one,  added 
at  the  close  of  the  Septuagint  Psalter,  with  this 
superscription:  "This  is  the  psalm  written  by 
his  own  hand  of  David,  and  outside  of  the  num- 
ber, when  he  fought  Goliath."  It  is  a  psalm 
composed  of  scraps  of  other  psalms. 

But  this  use  of  the  name  of  David  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Psalter  is,  on  the  other  hand,  an 
evidence  of  the  predominant  part  which  he 
played  in  the  organization  of  the  Temple  min- 
strelsy and  the  establishment  of  psalm  poetry. 

To  return  to  the  collection  of  the  psalms  as 
we  have  them,  it  should  be  understood,  to  begin 
with,  that  they  are  put  together,  generally,  in 
the  order  of  composition,  and  that  therefore  the 
earliest  psalms  are  to  be  found  in  the  earliest 
books.  We  must  look  for  the  psalms  which  are 
in  the  literal  sense  "  Psalms  of  David  "  chiefly,  if 
not  altogether,  in  the  first  book.  This  book 
may  be  said  to  constitute  the  first  collection  of 


J 4      THE  PSALTER  TV  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

Psalms  for  Temple  use  of  which  we  have  a  cer- 
tain record.  With  the  exception  of  the  first  and 
second  Psalms,  which  were  prefixed  to  the  col- 
lection at  a  later  date,  the  tenth  Psalm,  which  is 
properly  a  part  of  the  ninth,  and  the  thirty-third, 
which  was  attached  to  the  thirty-second  as  a  part 
of  that  psalm,  all  the  psalms  of  this  book  are 
designated  as  Psalms  of  David.  That  is,  this 
book  was  once  one  collection  called  k'The  Psalms 
of  David,"  or  the  like.  There  are  indications 
that  this  collection  was  composed  out  of  more 
than  one  earlier  collection,  but  these  indications 
are  not  absolutely  clear,  and  the  earlier  collec- 
tions have  been  so  handled  in  the  composition 
of  this  larger  collection  that  neither  their  date 
nor  their  limits  are  clearly  ascertainable. 

The  second  and  third  books  comprise  several 
distinct  collections  which  can  be  clearly  distin- 
guished by  their  headings.  There  is  here  also 
a  Psalter  of  David,  which  consists  of  Psalms  fifty- 
one  to  seventy-two.  The  title  of  these  psalms 
is  given  in  a  verse  following  the  doxology  at- 
tached to  the  seventy-second  Psalm,  and  num- 
bered in  our  Bibles  verse  20:  "The  prayers  of 
David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  are  ended."  Psalms 
forty-two  to  forty-nine  arc  a  Psalter  of  the  sons 
of  Korah.     Psalms  one  and   seventy-three  to 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  1 5 

eighty-three,  are  a  Psalter  of  Asaph.  At  a  later 
time,  after  these  collections  had  been  put  to- 
gether, they  were  disjointed  by  accident  or  by  in- 
tention, and  we  have  one  Psalm  of  Asaph  pre- 
ceding the  Psalter  of  David,  and  the  rest  follow- 
ing it.  These  three  collections  were  afterwards 
edited  and  formed  into  one  whole  with  the  ad- 
dition of  Psalms  eighty-five  to  eighty-nine, 
which  come  not  only  from  different  hands,  but 
also  from  a  different  school.  In  Psalms  forty- 
two  to  eighty-three,  as  originally  existing,  the 
name  used  for  God  had  been  Elohim.  The  com- 
posers or  compilers  of  these  additional  Psalms, 
eighty-four  to  eighty-nine,  used  the  name  Yah- 
weh,  or  Jehovah.  It  is  evident,  moreover,  that 
the  same  persons  not  only  added  these  psalms, 
but  also  edited  the  psalms  of  the  other  collec- 
tions in  these  two  books,  from  the  fact  that  in  the 
extra  verses  and  choruses  which  have  been  in- 
serted or  appended  here  and  there,  the  name 
Yahweh  is  used,  instead  of  Elohim.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  that  one  of  the  psalms  of  this 
collection,  Psalm  fifty-three,  is  the  same  as 
Psalm  fourteen  of  the  first  book  of  the  Psalter, 
with  the  exception  only  that  Psalm  fifty-three 
uses  the  name  Elohim  for  God,  while  Psalm  four- 
teen uses  the  name  Yahweh.     There  are  also 


1 6  THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

some  slight  textual  differences  in  the  two  forms 
of  the  psalm,  which  amount  merely  to  variant 
readings. 

The  psalms  up  to  this  point,  to  the  close  of 
the  eighty-ninth  Psalm,  or  the  end  of  the  third 
book,  are  provided  quite  freely  with  musical 
notes,  and  also  with  historical  headings.  But 
from  the  ninetieth  Psalm  on  there  is  no  musical 
annotation  of  the  character  of  that  prefixed  to 
the  psalms  in  the  earlier  books,  and  there  are 
comparatively  few  historical  headings. 

Everyone  who  has  read  the  psalms  in  the  King 
James  version  will  remember  the  curious  head- 
ings prefixed  to  some  of  them.  Beginning  with 
the  fourth  Psalm  a  large  number  are  headed, 
"  To  the  chief  musician, "  or,  as  the  marginal 
reading  has  it,  "  To  the  overseer."  This  same 
fourth  Psalm,  which  is  an  evening  hymn,  is  "  On 
Neginoth."  The  fifth  Psalm,  according  to  the 
King  James  version,  "  Is  to  the  chief  musician 
on  Nehiloth."  The  sixth  Psalm  is  to  the  chief 
musician  "  On  Neginoth  upon  Sheminith,"  for 
which  is  substituted  in  the  margin  "  upon  the 
eighth."  The  seventh  Psalm  is  a  "  Shiggaion 
of  David,"  etc. 

If  you  should  turn  to  the  revised  version,  you 
would  find  the  fourth  Psalm  described  as  "  For 


A  YD  IV  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  1? 

the  chief  musician  on  stringed  instruments;" 

while  the  fifth  Psalm  is  "  for  the  chief  musician 
on  Nehiloth,"  and  in  the  margin,  "  wind  instru- 
ments." The  sixth  Psalm  is,  "  for  the  chief  mu- 
sician on  stringed  instruments  "  set  "  To  Shem- 
inith,"  in  the  margin,  "  the  eighth."  The  sev- 
enth Psalm  is  still  the  "  Shiggaion  of  David." 
These  are  apparently  notes  with  regard  to  the 
musical  accompaniment  of  the  Psalms  and  the 
like.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  in  some 
cases  the  catch-words  of  tunes  are  also  given. 
But  at  an  early  date  these  musical,  or  liturgical 
directions  became  unintelligible  through  the 
change,  possibly,  of  the  musical  system  of  the 
Hebrews.  At  all  events,  when  the  Psalms  were 
translated  into  Greek,  somewhere,  presumably, 
in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  these  musi- 
cal instructions  were  no  longer  intelligible. 
Some  of  the  translations  of  the  musical  direc- 
tions in  the  "  Septuagint,"  or  Greek  translation 
of  the  Psalter,  are  even  quite  ludicrous.  What 
our  translators  render  "  to  the  chief  musician," 
the  Greek  translators  render  always  "  unto  the 
end."  Where  in  the  heading  of  the  fifth  and 
sixth  Psalms  our  translators  have  rendered 
either  "  with  the  Nehiloth,"  simply  transfer- 
ring the  Hebrew  word  without  translating  it, 


1 8      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

or  with  "  wind  instruments,"  the  Greek  has 
translated,  "  In  behalf  of  the  woman  inheriting." 

Now  the  reason  why  there  are  no  such  musi- 
cal headings  from  the  ninetieth  Psalm  onward 
seems  to  be  that  before  the  time  of  the  collec- 
tion of  the  psalms  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  books 
the  musical  system  had  undergone  a  change, 
and  the  later  terminology  had  become  as  unintel- 
ligible to  the  Jews  as  it  now  is  to  us.  Reverence 
for  what  had  come  down  from  the  fathers  led 
to  the  retention  of  those  unintelligible  terms  in 
the  psalm  collections  which  had  already  been 
made,  but  they  were  not  used  in  the  new  collec- 
tions. 

With  regard  to  the  historical  headings,  the 
case  is  somewhat  different.  We  can  observe 
those  headings  in  process  of  growth.  They  are 
in  the  Hebrew  text  particularly  numerous  in 
the  collection  of  "  The  Prayers  of  David,  son  of 
Jesse,"  Psalms  fifty-one  to  seventy-two,  inclu- 
sive. Here,  as  in  the  first  book  of  psalms, 
where  historical  headings  have  been  prefixed, 
the  historical  notes  are  all  taken  out  of  the  books 
of  Samuel. 

Taking  up  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Psal- 
ter, we  find  that  the  historical  headings  are 
much  more  numerous  there  than  in  the  Hebrew 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  19 

Psalter,  and  refer  to  many  more  circumstances 
in  the  life  of  David.  The  Davidic  origin  of  the 
psalms  was  making  itself  felt  as  the  generations 
went  on  in  the  application  by  later  commenta- 
tors of  individual  psalms  to  particular  events  in 
the  life  of  David. 

But  to  return  to  the  collections  of  psalms. 
Not  only  do  we  observe  this  sharp  distinction 
between  the  psalms  before  ninety  and  after 
ninety  in  regard  to  musical  notation:  there  is  a 
similar  difference  in  other  matters  also.  The 
psalms  from  three  to  eighty-nine  are,  I  think, 
without  exception  psalms  which  have  grown  in 
the  mouth  of  the  people.  Take  for  instance 
Psalms  nine  and  ten,  which  really  constitute  one 
whole,  and  are  divided  into  two  by  some  acci- 
dent in  that  particular  text  from  which  our  mod- 
ern Hebrew  texts  are  descended.  This  psalm 
constituted  originally  an  alphabetic  acrostic. 
The  first  verse  begins  with  the  first  letter  of  the 
alphabet,  the  third  with  the  second  letter,  the 
fifth  with  the  third,  etc.  It  was  a  psalm  not 
exactly  of  the  exultant  type,  but  certainly  not 
representing  any  very  great  feeling  of  calamity. 
At  a  later  date  the  verses  between  K  and  Q  were 
cut  out  and  other  verses,  not  acrostic,  and  of 
most  mournful  character,  were  substituted  in 


20      THE   PSALTER   IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

their  stead.    So  that  the  psalm  as  it  comes  down 
to  us  is  a  Jeremiad. 

This  method  of  adapting  psalms  to  circum- 
stances is  even  more  noticeable  in  the  case  of  the 
forty-fourth  Psalm.  This  psalm,  as  I  think  any- 
one will  see  if  he  will  examine  his  Psalter  care- 
fully, ended  originally  with  the  eighth  verse,  the 
ninth  verse  in  the  Prayer  Book  Psalter,  at  which 
point  in  the  King  James  version,  as  also  in  the 
Canterbury  revision,  you  will  find  a  selah,  an- 
other of  those  Hebrew  musical  terms  of  which 
the  meaning  was  early  lost.  It  is  a  glorious, 
bright  psalm,  a  psalm  of  triumph  and  of  victory. 

1.  We  have  heard  with  our  ears,  O  God,  our 
fathers  have  told  us:  what  thou  hast  done  in  their 
time  of  old: 

2.  How  thou  hast  driven  out  the  heathen  with 
thy  hand,  and  planted  them  in:  how  thou  hast 
destroyed  the  nations,  and  cast  them  out. 

3.  For  they  gat  not  the  land  in  possession 
through  their  own  sword:  neither  was  it  their 
own  arm  that  helped  them: 

4.  But  thy  right  hand,  and  thine  arm,  and  the 
light  of  thy  countenance:  because  thou  hadst 
a  favor  unto  them. 

5.  Thou  art  my  King,  O  God:  send  help  unto 
Jacob. 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  21 

6.  Through  thee  will  we  overthrow  our  en- 
emies: and  in  thy  Name  will  we  tread  them  under 
that  rise  up  against  us. 

7.  For  I  will  not  trust  in  my  bow:  it  is  not 
my  sword  that  shall  help  me: 

8.  But  it  is  thou  that  savest  us  from  our  en- 
emies: and  puttest  them  to  confusion  that  hate 
us. 

9.  We  make  our  boast  of  God  all  day  long: 
and  will  praise  thy  Name  for  ever. 

But  the  ninth  verse,  the  tenth  according  to 
the  Prayer  Book  version,  begins  a  very  wail  of 
distress,  contrasting  the  former  triumph  and 
exultation  with  the  present  misery  and  oppres- 
sion. 

Another  example  of  the  method  in  which  the 
Psalter  grew  in  the  mouth  of  the  Jewish  Church 
is  the  nineteenth  Psalm.  Here  are  joined  to- 
gether a  very  beautiful  short-metre,  quick-mov- 
ing psalm,  describing  the  glory  of  God  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  daily  course  of  the  sun,  and  a  long- 
metre  psalm,  of  a  curious  and  somewhat  limping 
verse,  singing  the  praise  of  the  law  of  God.  The 
two  make  a  beautiful  combination  in  thought,  al- 
though in  the  Hebrew  text  the  metres  are  in 
most  curious  and  surprising  contrast,  setting 
forth  the  glory  of  God  as  displayed  equally  in 


22      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

His  outward  world,  and  in  the  inner  world  of 
the  heart  of  man.  God's  sun  gives  light  to  one, 
Jehovah's  law  lighteneth  the  other. 

All  through  these  books  the  Church  speaks. 
The  individual  who  composed  the  psalm,  who- 
ever he  may  be,  whether  David  or  some  later 
writer,  has  in  the  course  of  time  been  eliminated, 
and  you  have  not  the  thought  of  any  one  indi- 
vidual, or  the  experience  of  any  one  individual, 
but  the  thought  and  the  experience  of  the 
Church. 

But  although  used  by  the  Church,  these 
psalms,  in  many  cases  at  least,  bear  evidence  of 
not  having  been  composed  originally  for  the 
Temple  service.  So  the  twentieth  and  the  twen- 
ty-first Psalms  are  both  battle  hymns,  or  rather 
the  twentieth  is  the  hymn  of  the  king  going 
out  to  battle,  and  the  twenty-first  a  Te  Deum 
after  victory.  The  forty-fifth  Psalm,  as  we  are 
told  in  the  heading,  is  a  "  song  of  loves,"  that 
is,  it  was  written  originally  as  an  epithalamium, 
or  marriage   hymn. 

Now  beginning  with  the  ninetieth  Psalm  we 
come  into  a  somewhat  different  atmosphere. 
The  psalms  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  books  are  for 
the  most  part  written  for  the  express  purpose 
of  being  sung  in  the  service  of  the  Temple.    And 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  23 

yet  this  is  not  true  of  every  psalm  in  the  latter 
portion  of  the  Psalter.  There  are  here  also  a 
number  of  collections  which  have  been  joined 
together  to  make  finally  one  whole.  One  of 
these  is  a  collection  of  Folk  Hymns. 

If  you  will  look  at  the  psalms  in  your  King 
James  version,  or  in  the  Canterbury  revision 
of  the  Bible,  you  will  find  that  Psalms  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
four,  inclusive,  bear  in  the  King  James  version 
each  the  heading,  "  A  song  of  degrees,"  and  in 
the  Canterbury  revision  "  A  song  of  ascents/' 
They  are  really  a  "  Pilgrim  Psalter,"  sung  by 
the  Pilgrims  who  came  up  to  Jerusalem  from 
the  "  captivity,"  the  name,  which,  even  after 
the  return  from  the  exile,  was  applied  to  those 
Jews  who  continued  to  reside  in  Babylonia. 
Some  of  these  psalms  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  Psalter.  If  you  will  read 
them  with  a  recollection  of  their  origin  and 
first  use,  I  think,  so  vivid  are  their  pictures, 
that  you  can  almost  imagine  yourself  march- 
ing, marching  with  those  pilgrims  over  the 
boundless  plain,  out  of  the  land  of  idolatry 
up  toward  the  mountains  whence  cometh  their 
help,  in  which,  encircled  by  hills,  is  the  holy  city, 
Jerusalem,  "  built  as  a  city  that  is  at  unity  in 


24      THE   PSALTER   IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

itself,"  whither  "  the  tribes  go  up,  even  the  tribes 
of  the  Lord."  The  poetry  of  these  psalms,  with 
the  exception  of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-sec- 
ond, is  different  from  the  poetry  of  any  other 
portion  of  the  Psalter.  They  are  full,  moreover, 
of  dialectical  peculiarities  and  of  Babylonian- 
isms,  which  indicate  their  origin  among  the  Jews 
of  the  captivity.  Apparently,  after  they  had 
sung  themselves  into  the  heart  of  the  people, 
used  generation  after  generation  by  the  Jews  of 
the  dispersion  on  their  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem, 
they  were  adopted  by  the  collectors  of  a  new 
Psalter,  and  incorporated  in  that  collection. 

Among  the  most  characteristic  of  the  collec- 
tions in  the  later  portion  of  the  Psalter  is  the 
Praise  of  the  Law,  the  one  hundred  and  nine- 
teenth Psalm,  which  is  really  twenty-two  psalms 
in  itself,  consisting  of  that  number  of  divisions, 
each  verse  of  which  begins  with  one  certain  let- 
ter of  the  alphabet,  so  that  the  whole  psalm  is 
an  alphabetic  acrostic,  with  each  letter  repeated 
eight  times  over,  while  each  verse  contains  some 
name  of  the  law,  and  some  attribute  of  the  law. 
Characteristic  also  are  the  Hallel  or  Hallelujah 
collections.  One  of  these  Hallelujah  collections 
consists  of  Psalms  one  hundred  and  eleven  to 
one  hundred  and   seventeen,  inclusive.     These 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  25 

psalms,  with  the  addition  of  the  one  hundred  and 
eighteenth,  constitute  the  Hallel,  which  was 
sung  by  the  Jews  at  the  Passover,  as  the  Songs 
of  Degrees  were  sung  at  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles. Another  Hallel  or  Praise  collection  is 
that  which  closes  the  entire  collection  of  Psalms, 
namely,  Psalms  one  hundred  and  forty-six  to  one* 
hundred  and  fifty,  inclusive. 

I  might  go  much  further  into  details,  and 
might  endeavor  to  set  before  you  some  theory 
as  to  the  dates  of  these  collections  of  psalms, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  they  were  put  to- 
gether, but  I  trust  that  I  have  said  enough  to 
show  the  composite  character  of  the  Psalter 
and  its  slow  growth,  its  use  in  the  mouth  of  the' 
people,  and  its  adaptations  to  the  needs  of  God's 
people,  as  those  needs  came  upon  them;  enough 
to  show  you  that  it  was  the  expression  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  chosen  people  of  God  for 
almost  one  thousand  years;  and  enough  to  show 
you  why  it  has  continued  from  that  date  to  this 
the  unsurpassed  and  unsurpassable  Hymn-book 
of  the  Church. 

And  now  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  we  know 
about  the  liturgical  or  ritual  use  of  the  Psalter 
among  the  Hebrews.  I  have  already  pointed  out 
that  by  the  heading  of  the  forty-fifth  Psalm  we 


26      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

are  informed  that  that  psalm  was  at  some  time 
a  wedding  hymn,  and  indeed  a  study  of  the  psalm 
itself  makes  it  clear  that  this  was  the  purpose 
for  which  it  was  composed.  The  heading  of  the 
one  hundred  and  second  Psalm  reads  as  follows: 
"  A  Prayer  of  the  afflicted,  when  he  is  over- 
whelmed, and  poureth  out  his  soul  before  Je- 
hovah." In  other  words,  the  one  hundred  and 
second  Psalm  was  a  penitential  psalm,  appointed 
to  be  used  by  persons  in  distress  of  mind  or  body. 
In  the  headings  of  Psalms  thirty-eight  and  sev- 
enty you  will  find,  in  the  Canterbury  version, 
the  words.:  "  To  bring  to  remembrance,"  and  in 
the  margin  the  alternative  rendering:  "  To  make 
memorial."  But  the  word  so  translated  means 
literally  "  to  make  askara."  Now  the  askara 
was  that  part  of  the  meal  or  vegetable  offering, 
called  "  meat  offering  "  in  the  authorized  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible,  which  was  cast  into  the  sac- 
rificial fire  as  God's  portion.  This  is  a  liturgical 
note,  then,  informing  us  that  at  some  time  these 
psalms  were  appointed  to  be  used  in  the  Temple 
in  connection  with  the  sacrifice  or  office  of  the 
askara. 

A  rubric  incorporated  in  the  one  hundred  and 
eighteenth  Psalm  gives  us  a  clew  to  the  use  of 
that  processional  hymn.     If  you  will  turn  to  the 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  2? 

twenty-seventh  verse  of  that  psalm  in  the 
Prayer  Book  version,  you  will  see  that  the  sec- 
ond half  reads:  "  Bind  the  sacrifice  with  cords, 
yea,  even  unto  the  horns  of  the  altar."  Now, 
in  the  Hebrew  that  is  in  prose,  while  both  what 
precedes  and  what  follows  are  poetry.  This  is, 
then,  manifestly  not  a  half  verse  of  the  psalm, 
but  a  rubrical  direction  that  at  this  point  the 
sacrifice  should  be  bound  to  the  horns  of  the 
altar  preparatory  to  its  slaughter.  The  one 
hundred  and  eighteenth  Psalm  was  a  proces- 
sional hymn  to  be  used  on  the  occasion  of  a 
grand  and  festive  sacrifice. 

The  use  of  some  psalms  is  marked  by  their 
contents.  Psalm  three  is  a  morning  hymn, 
Psalm  four  an  evening  hymn,  used  at  some  pe- 
riod for  the  morning  and  evening  service  in  the 
Temple.  (Unfortunately  in  our  present  arrange- 
ment of  the  Psalter  we  sing  Psalm  four,  the  even- 
ing hymn,  in  the  morning.)  Psalm  twenty-four 
was  a  processional  hymn;  Psalm  sixty-seven  a 
harvest  hymn,  etc. 

One  of  the  psalms  in  the  later  collections; 
Psalm  ninety-two,  is  headed:  "  A  Psalm,  a  song 
for  the  Sabbath-day."  That  is  to  say,  this  psalm 
was  appointed  to  be  sung  in  the  sacrificial  ser- 
vice in  the  Temple  on  the  Sabbath.    The  Hebrew 


28      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

text  of  the  psalms  gives  us  no  evidence  of  the 
appointment  of  special  psalms  for  the  other  clays 
of  the  week,  but  in  the  Greek  translation,  the 
Septuagint,  we  find  by  the  headings  that  the 
twenty-fourth  Psalm  was  appointed  for  Sunday, 
the  forty-eighth  for  Monday,  the  eighty-second 
for  Tuesday,  the  ninety-fourth  for  Wednesday, 
the  eighty-first  for  Thursday,  and  the  ninety- 
third  for  Friday;  information  which  the  Talmud 
confirms.  In  the  time  of  our  Lord  these  psalms 
constituted  the  regular  psalters  for  the  service 
of  the  daily  morning  sacrifice  in  the  Jewish  Tem- 
ple, and  were  sung  week  in  and  week  out.  But 
on  certain  special  occasions  special  psalms  were 
appointed  to  be  used  instead  of  the  Psalter  for 
the  day,  as  for  instance  the  eighty-first  Psalm 
at  morning  sacrifice  on  the  new  moon  of  the  sev- 
enth month,  and  the  twenty-ninth  at  evening 
sacrifice  on  the  same  day.  These  selections  were 
very  short  in  comparison  with  our  present  use, 
but  there  were  also  occasions,  as  already  stated, 
on  which  an  entire  group  of  psalms,  like  the 
eight  psalms  of  the  Hallel,  or  the  fifteen  psalms 
of  Degrees,  were  appointed  to  be  sung. 

The  Jews  were  in  the  habit  of  treating  the 
psalms  with  a  great  deal  of  freedom  for  liturgical 
purposes,  cutting  them  and  compounding  them 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  29 

to  produce  chants  suitable  to  their  purpose. 
When  they  used  the  Song  of  Moses,  Deuteron- 
omy xxxii.,  they  divided  it  into  six  different 
chants,  one  of  which  was  considered  enough 
for  one  service,  which  reminds  one  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  compilers  of  our  Prayer  Book 
have  cut  out  the  chants  Bonum  est  and  Benedic 
Anima  Mea  from  Psalms  ninety-two  and  one 
hundred  and  three.  Psalm  one  hundred  and 
eight  is  a  chant  composed  of  verses  6  to  12  of 
Psalm  sixty  and  8  to  12  of  Psalm  fifty-seven,  in 
the  same  way  in  which  the  Venite  in  our  Prayer 
Book  is  composed  of  verses  1  to  7  of  Psalm  nine- 
ty-five, and  verses  9  and  13  of  Psalm  ninety-six. 
A  still  more  interesting  example  of  this  method 
of  composing  new  psalms  or  chants  out  of  por- 
tions of  others  is  afforded  us  in  the  Psalm  of 
Dedication  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  the  first 
book  of  Chronicles. 

I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  existence 
of  glorias  or  doxologies  in  the  psalms.  One  of 
these  is  used  at  the  end  of  the  chant  in  the  six- 
teenth chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Chronicles; 
and,  indeed,  we  may  pretty  fairly  conclude  that 
those  doxologies  were  placed  at  the  end  of  each 
collection  of  psalms,  as  we  place  doxologies  at 
the  end  of  our  hymnals,  to  be  sung  not  only  after 


30      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

the  psalms  which  they  immediately  follow,  but 
after  any  psalm  in  the  collection  as  it  might  be 
used.  Some  of  the  smaller  collections  of  psalms 
in  the  Psalter  have  special  doxologies  of  their 
own.  So  the  one  hundred  and  seventeenth 
Psalm,  that  very  short  two-versed  psalm: 

"O  Praise  the  Lord,  all  ye  heathen:  praise  him, 
all  ye  nations. 

For  his  merciful  kindness  is  ever  more  and  more 
towards  us;  and  the  truth  of  the  Lord  en- 
dureth  for  ever.    Praise  the  Lord," 

is  the  gloria  to  the  Hallel;  and  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-fourth  Psalm: 

"Behold,  now,  praise  the  Lord:  all  ye  servants 

of  the  Lord, 
Ye  that  by  night  stand  in  the  house  of  the  Lord: 

even  in  the  courts  of  the  house  of  our  God. 
Lift  up  your  hands  in  the  sanctuary:  and  praise 

the  Lord. 
The  Lord  that  made  heaven  and  earth:  give 

thee  blessing  out  of  Zion," 

to  the  Pilgrim  Psalter,  or  Songs  of  Degrees. 

But  not  only  did  the  Jewish  Church  have  the 
same  method  of  using  doxologies  which  we  have 
now,  and  indeed  which  we  adopted  from  them, 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  3 1 

they  had  also  the  same  method  of  using  the 
Amen,  and  the  Hallelujah.  So,  at  the  close  of 
the  chant  to  which  I  have  already  referred  in  the 
sixteenth  chapter  of  first  Chronicles,  we  are  told 
that  all  the  people  said  Amen  and  Hallelujah, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  one  hundred  and  sixth 
Psalm  there  is  a  rubric,  unfortunately  printed  in 
both  our  Bibles  and  Prayer-books  as  a  part  of 
the  psalm  itself,  to  this  effect,  "  And  let  all  the 
people  say  Amen,  Allelujah."  It  was  the  prac- 
tice, in  other  words,  at  the  close  of  the  doxology 
to  respond  Amen.  Hallelujah  was  similarly  used, 
and  when  we  use  it  before  or  after  some  of  our 
praise  hymns,  especially  in  the  Easter  season, 
we  are  but  copying  the  old  Jewish  use.  In  fact, 
the  Amens  and  Hallelujahs  which  we  find  in  the 
Psalter  are  not  in  general  original  parts  of  the 
psalms  with  which  they  are  connected,  but  litur- 
gical directions,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  like  the 
Amens  which  we  sing  at  the  close  of  our  hymns. 
To  sum  up  in  its  main  features  our  knowledge 
of  the  liturgical  use  of  the  Psalter  among  the 
Jews,  we  may  say  that  the  Jews  had  a  daily 
Psalter  arranged  according  to  the  week,  not  the 
month.  They  had  special  psalms  for  special  fes- 
tivals. They  composed  anthems  by  divisions 
and  combinations  of  already  existing  psalms,  as 


32      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

well  as  by  new  compositions.  They  sung  a 
gloria  at  the  close  of  each  chant  or  anthem. 
Glorias  were  also  sung  at  the  close  of  each  selec- 
tion of  psalms  used  in  a  service.  They  made  use 
after  the  Gloria  of  the  response,  Amen.  They 
used,  liturgically,  sometimes  at  the  close  of  their 
hymns,  and  sometimes  at  the  beginning,  the 
ascription  of  praise,  Hallelujah,  that  is,  "  Praise 
ye  the  Lord." 

Now  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  after  the 
close  of  the  Psalter  the  Hebrews  ceased  to  com- 
pose psalms  or  hymns  on  the  ancient  models. 
At  the  time  of  our  Lord  they  were  still  compos- 
ing such  psalms.  One  collection,  entitled,  "  The 
Psalter  of  Solomon,"  which  was  collected  not 
many  years  before  our  Lord's  birth,  has  come 
down  to  our  own  time.  At  a  much  later  date 
the  form  of  Hebrew  poetry  changed  entirely, 
becoming  rhymed,  and  there  are  in  the  modern 
Jewish  rituals  many  beautiful  hymns  of  rhymed 
poetry.  But  no  psalm  and  no  hymn  composed 
after  the  final  collection  of  the  Psalter,  some- 
where about  150  B.C.,  was  admitted  into  the 
sacred  collection,  however  highly  it  might  be  es- 
teemed. Such  later  hymns,  used  in  their  ritual; 
but  not  contained  in  the  Psalter,  you  might 
compare  with  our  Te  Deum,  Gloria  in  Excelsis, 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  33 

and  Ter  Sanctus,  which  we  practically  treat  as 
inspired,  and  which  the  people  reverence  equally 
with  the  Psalter,  but  which  cannot  be  admitted 
into  the  sacred  collection,  and  are  therefore 
technically  placed  upon  a  different  plane. 

The  Christian  Church  inherited  the  Psalter 
from  the  Jewish  Church,  and  the  earlier  Chris- 
tians not  only  continued  to  use  the  Psalter  as 
their  Hymn-book,  but  also  adopted  its  spirit  and 
began  to  compose  new  psalms  as  the  Jews  had 
done  before  them.  Four  of  these,  the  "  Magnifi- 
cat, "  "  Nunc  dimittis,"  "  Angelic  Hymn,"  and 
"  Benedictus "  are  contained  in  our  New 
Testament.  Others  of  a  later  date,  but  formed 
on  the  same  model,  like  the  "  Te  Deum,"  al- 
though not  contained  in  the  Bible,  hold  in  the 
liturgy  of  the  Church  a  position  of  honor  equal 
with  the  Psalms  and  Gospel  Hymns. 

There  have  come  down  to  us  besides  these 
hymns,  which  we  have  incorporated  in  our  New 
Testament,  or  our  ritual,  other  fragments  of 
early  Christian  psalms  and  odes,  composed  on 
psalm  models,  which  show  us  that  in  the  first 
Christian  centuries  the  Psalter  was  a  living 
force,  and  the  spirit  of  psalmody  not  yet  ex- 
tinct. 

As  far  as  we  can  learn,  the  Christians  at  first 
3 


34      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

followed  in  their  liturgies  the  Jewish  use  of  the 
Psalter,  almost,  if  not  quite,  in  its  entirety.  In 
form  the  Christian  liturgy  was  founded  on  the 
Jewish  in  every  detail,  and  the  earliest  Christian 
litany  which  we  find,  our  familiar, 

"  Lord  have  mercy  upon  us, 
Christ  have  mercy  upon  us, 
Lord  have  mercy  upon  us/' 

is  but  an  adaptation  of  the  synagogue  litany,  or 
responsive  prayer,  adapted  from  the  fifty-first 
Psalm.  Regular  psalms,  or  selections  of  psalms, 
were  appointed  for  the  days  of  the  wTeek,  a  song 
of  gladness  for  the  first  day,  a  song  of  sorrow 
and  mourning  for  the  sixth  day;  and  similarly 
for  the  great  feasts  and  fasts.  In  the  Sunday 
service  one  psalm,  or  a  portion  of  a  psalm,  or  an 
anthem  made  out  of  selections  from  the  psalms 
was  sung,  or,  perhaps,  on  some  special  occasion 
several  psalms  were  united  to  form  a  selection, 
and  sung  over  one  Gloria.  At  the  end  of  each 
selection,  whether  composed  of  one  psalm,  a  por- 
tion of  a  psalm,  or  a  group  of  psalms,  the  Gloria 
was  sung,  after  the  Jewish  custom,  and  so  uni- 
versal did  this  use  of  the  doxology  or  Gloria 
soon  become  that  at  a  very  early  date  a  doxology 
was   added    even    to    the    Lord's    Prayer,    and 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  35 

many  manuscripts  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel 
give  it  with  that  doxology,  "  For  thine  is  the 
kingdom,  the  power  and  the  glory,  for  ever  and 
ever,  Amen,"  as  though  this  were  a  part  of  the 
prayer  itself. 

It  is  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  after 
Christ  that  we  find  liturgies  beginning  to  as- 
sume definite  and  fixed  forms.  By  that  time  the 
Bible  had  ceased  to  be  the  live  book  which  it  had 
been  to  the  earlier  Christians,  and  was  beginning 
to  receive  a  more  mechanical  treatment.  With 
the  growing  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  sense 
of  Scriptures  there  went  hand  in  hand  an  increase 
of  reverence  for  the  name  and  form,  so  that  mere 
repetition  of  Bible  words  came  to  be  regarded 
as  in  itself  meritorious.  This  showed  itself  most 
of  all  in  the  treatment  of  the  Psalter,  which  was 
best  adapted  of  all  parts  of  Scripture  to  memoriz- 
ing, and  had  from  the  beginning  been  memorized 
more  freely  than  other  portions  of  the  Bible,  so 
that,  we  are  told,  it  was  not  uncommon  to  find 
devout  laymen  who  could  recite  the  Psalter 
through  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  while 
children  began  their  study  of  the  Bible  with  the 
Psalter. 

At  this  time  we  begin  to  find  some  slight  dis- 
tinctions between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western 


36      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

use.  The  Eastern  Church  clung  somewhat  more 
closely  than  the  Western  to  the  Jewish  and 
earlier  Christian  method  of  singing  the  Psalter. 
The  Gloria  was  used  only  at  the  end  of  each  se- 
lection of  psalms,  and  not  at  the  end  of  each 
individual  psalm,  while  in  the  Western  Church 
it  had  already  become  the  custom  to  put  the 
Gloria  after  everything,  so  that  every  individual 
psalm  used  in  the  service  was  followed  by  a 
Gloria,  never  mind  how  many  psalms  might  fol- 
low one  another.  In  the  Eastern  Church  the 
early  practice  of  selections,  adaptations,  the  use 
of  parts  of  psalms  and  the  like,  was  still  some- 
what retained.  In  the  Western  Church  the 
psalms,  as  is  indicated,  among  other  things,  by 
the  use  of  the  Gloria  just  referred  to,  had  come 
to  be  treated  as  individual  wholes,  which  it  was 
not  allowable  to  change  or  modify  in  any  man- 
ner. The  Western  Church  had  also  developed 
more  fully,  it  would  appear,  the  idea  of  using 
the  psalms  consecutively  in  the  order  in  which 
they  chance  to  stand  in  the  Psalter. 

In  both  Eastern  and  Western  churches  there 
grew  up  gradually  the  practice  of  interspersing 
antiphons  or  anthems  through  the  psalms  and 
Scripture  readings.  This  practice  grew  with  the 
growing  ignorance  of  the  contents  of  the  Bible, 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  37 

until  at  last,  in  the  period  of  the  densest  igno- 
rance of  the  Latin  Church,  it  was  the  custom 
to  sing  an  antiphon  after  each  verse  of  each 
psalm.  As  the  number  of  psalms  used  in  each 
service  was  continually  on  the  increase,  owing 
to  the  idea  that  there  was  a  merit  in  reciting  as 
many  psalms  daily  as  possible,  the  Psalter  of  the 
daily  services  finally  reached  an  inordinate  and 
impossible  length.  Fancy  eighteen  psalms  sung 
in  one  service,  and  these  more  than  doubled  in 
length  by  the  insertion  of  an  antiphon  after  each 
verse  and  the  addition  of  a  gloria  at  the  close 
of  each  psalm. 

It  was  the  predominance  of  monasticism  and 
the  development  of  the  hour  services  in  the 
Latin  Church  that  brought  about  the  use  and 
abuse  which  I  have  just  noticed.  It  had  become 
the  rule  to  sing  the  Psalter  through  each  week, 
and  at  certain  seasons  more  frequently.  There 
was  a  virtue  in  the  mere  repetition  of  the  words, 
and  to  sing  the  whole  Psalter  through  each  week 
had  a  value  in  itself  quite  apart  from  an  intel- 
ligent comprehension  of  the  service  rendered, 
or  an  intelligent  participation  in  that  service. 
About  twelve  psalms,  increasing  at  one  time  to 
eighteen,  as  noted  above,  were  appointed  as  the 
selection  for  each  service,  interspersed  with  anti- 


38       THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

phons,  and  with  a  gloria  after  each  psalm. 
Nevertheless,  the  older  practice  of  selections 
for  special  festivals  so  far  prevailed  that  the 
psalms  were  not  arranged  for  use  altogether 
according  to  the  order  of  their  position  in  the 
Psalter.  The  fourth  Psalm,  which  is  an  evening- 
hymn,  was  recognized  as  such,  and  appointed 
to  be  used  at  evening  service,  while  the  third 
Psalm,  which  is  the  corresponding  morning 
hymn,  was  appointed  for  the  morning;  the 
ninety-fifth  Psalm,  the  Venite,  was  removed  al- 
together from  the  regular  course,  and  treated 
as  an  introduction  to  the  entire  service  of  psalm- 
ody for  the  day,  following  an  early  Christian  use; 
psalms  like  the  fifty-first,  the  Miserere,  were  ap- 
pointed for  fast  days,  etc.  As  the  number 
of  saints'  and  special  days  and  the  observance  of 
those  days  increased,  so  the  system  of  selections 
was  developed,  until  at  last  the  selections  prac- 
tically took  the  place  of  the  regular  daily  Psalter 
in  the  monastic  hour  services,  in  which  there  was, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  monks,  a  practical 
advantage,  inasmuch  as  the  selections  were 
shorter  than  the  regular  portions. 

At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  then  the  entire 
Psalter  was  theoretically  sung  or  recited  once  a 
week,  excepting  only  such  psalms  of  special  use 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  39 

as  the  fourth,  fifty-first,  ninety-fifth,  etc.,  which 
were  used  many  times  over,  but  in  actual  prac- 
tice only  two-thirds  of  the  psalms  were  really  in 
use,  selected  and  arranged  in  special  services. 
This  the  reformers  within  the  Roman  Church 
regarded  as  an  abuse  adopted  for  the  sake  of 
ease  and  convenience,  demanding  instead  the 
use  of  the  entire  Psalter  weekly. 

The  fathers  of  the  English  Reformation 
adopted  the  theory  of  the  mediaeval  Roman  use 
contended  for  by  these  reformers,  namely  that 
the  whole  Psalter  should  be  sung  through,  and 
seem  to  have  regarded  all  deviations  from  the 
regular  order  through  the  use  of  special  psalms 
for  holy  days  as  an  abuse  to  be  corrected.  They 
stood  for  the  study  and  use  by  the  people  of 
the  whole  Bible,  and  not  merely  of  selected  por- 
tions, and  in  the  matter  of  the  psalms  it  seemed 
to  them  desirable  that  the  whole  book  should 
in  some  manner  be  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  peo- 
ple. Xo  other  way  was  so  well  adapted  to  make 
them  familiar  with  the  whole  Psalter  as  to  have 
it  read  through  in  order.  Moreover,  partly  ow- 
ing to  the  development  of  a  modern  hymn  poetry 
totally  unlike  that  of  the  psalms  and  the  early 
hymns  of  the  Christian  Church  founded  on  psalm 
models,  such  as  the  Te  Deum,  the  Gloria  in  Ex- 


40      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

celsis,  etc.,  the  use  of  which  made  them  think 
that  the  psalms  were  not  hymns,  and  partly  be- 
cause of  their  way  of  looking  at  the  Bible,  the 
reformers  had  come  to  regard  the  psalms  as 
a  collection  of  inspired  texts,  wholesome  to  be 
read,  rather  than  as  hymns  intended  to  be  sung 
as  such;  for  chanting  was  regarded  as  a  form  of 
reciting  rather  than  a  real  singing. 

But  with  the  best  intentions  it  was  impossible 
under  the  new  order  either  to  say  or  to  sing  the 
whole  Psalter  through  once  a  week.  Conse- 
quently, in  order  to  carry  out  this  new  theory 
of  saying  the  whole  Psalter  through  in  order 
from  beginning  to  end,  they  were  compelled  to 
abandon  the  ancient  Catholic  plan  of  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  psalms  according  to  a  weekly 
cycle,  which  the  Christian  Church  had  inherited 
from  the  Jewish,  and  which  prevailed  every- 
where, east  and  west  alike,  and  to  substitute  a 
monthly  arrangement,  a  thing  hitherto  unheard 
of  in  Christendom.  For  only  some  half  dozen  of 
the  greatest  feasts  of  the  Church  did  they  ap- 
point special  psalms,  for  the  other  three  hundred 
and  fifty-nine  days  of  the  year,  Sundays  and  week 
days,  feast  days  and  fast  days,  they  ordered  that 
the  psalms  should  be  said  in  rotation,  with  no 
reference  whatsoever  to  Church  seasons  or  the 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  41 

lesson  of  the  day.  Friday  psalms  might  fall  on 
Sunday  and  Sunday  psalms  on  Friday;  hence- 
forth all  this  was  left  to  chance.  The  important 
thing  was  to  have  the  whole  Psalter  said  through 
at  frequent  intervals.  Accordingly  the  Psalter 
was  divided  into  sixty  sections,  as  nearly  equal  as 
they  could  be  made  without  dividing  individual 
psalms  other  than  the  one  hundred  and  nine- 
teenth. These  divisions  were  allotted  in  order 
to  the  days  of  the  month,  two  divisions  being 
assigned  to  each  day,  one  for  the  morning  and 
one  for  the  evening.  The  evening  hymn,  Psalm 
four,  chanced  to  fall  in  the  equal  portion  which 
had  been  cut  off  for  the  first  morning,  and  in 
the  morning  it  has  therefore  been  said  or  sung 
ever  since.  Similarly  the  fact  that  the  ninety- 
fifth  Psalm  chanced  to  fall  in  the  thirty-eighth 
equal  section  made  it  a  part  of  the  Psalter  for 
the  nineteenth  morning,  quite  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  as  the  Venite  it  constituted  the  intro- 
duction to  the  Psalter  on  every  day  of  the  year. 
According  to  the  Anglican  arrangement,  sup- 
posing a  man  to  go  to  church  twice  a  day  dur- 
ing the  whole  year,  he  would  read  or  sing  each 
psalm  twelve  times  over  with  the  exception  of 
a  very  few  which  he  would  use  thirteen  times, 
and  a  few  more  which  he  would  use  eleven  times, 


42      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

while  the  Venite,  or  Psalm  ninety-five,  he  would 
repeat  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  times.  If 
he  go  to  church  twice  each  Sunday,  and  twice 
on  the  four  days  not  Sundays  for  which  special 
psalms  are  appointed,  during  the  year  1896,  he 
will  use  every  psalm  but  the  one  hundred  and 
sixteenth,  one  hundred  and  seventeenth,  and 
the  first  four  divisions  of  the  one  hundred  and 
nineteenth  Psalm.  If,  however,  he  go  to  church 
only  once  a  Sunday,  in  the  morning,  and  once 
on  each  of  the  four  special  psalm  days  not  Sun- 
days, also  in  the  morning,  he  will  have  used  one 
psalm,  the  ninety-fifth,  fifty-five  times,  eleven 
psalms  three  times,  thirty-eight  psalms  twice, 
forty-nine  psalms  once  (counting  each  of  the  five 
sections  of  Psalm  one  hundred  and  nineteen  as 
a  separate  psalm)  and  sixty-five  psalms  he  will 
have  altogether  failed  to  use. 

The  compilers  of  the  American  Prayer  Book, 
in  1789  and  1792,  retained  in  general  the  peculi- 
arities of  the  Anglican  use  of  the  psalms,  but  in- 
troduced some  important  modifications,  con- 
forming their  use  somewhat  more  to  primitive 
Christian  use.  In  addition  to  the  regular  Psalter 
for  the  day  selections  of  psalms  were  provided 
and  recommended  for  use,  being  printed  before 
the  Psalter,  with  a  view  to  providing  appropriate 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  43 

psalms  for  all  seasons  of  the  Church  year,  and  es- 
pecially for  Sundays.  In  these  selections,  follow- 
ing primitive  use,  the  fathers  of  the  American 
Church  did  not  hesitate  to  use  portions  of  psalms 
as  well  as  entire  psalms.  They  also  reverted  to 
primitive  use  in  recommending  the  use  of  the 
Gloria  Patri  only  after  each  selection  or  group 
of  psalms,  instead  of  after  each  psalm.  Further 
than  this,  several  new  canticles  were  prefixed 
to  the  Psalter  for  optional  use  on  the  great  feast 
days,  composed  after  the  manner  of  various  prim- 
itive models  by  putting  together  verses  from 
several  psalms.  Following  the  same  primitive 
freedom  of  treatment,  the  Venite  was  vastly 
improved  by  dropping  verses  8  to  n  of  Psalm 
ninety-five,  and  substituting  therefor  two  verses, 
9  and  13,  of  Psalm  ninety-six.  Two  new  canticles 
were  also  added  to  Evening  Prayer,  composed 
from  psalms,  but  not  consisting  in  either  case  of 
an  entire  psalm,  the  Bonum  est,  and  the  Benedic 
Anima  Mea.  A  change  was  also  made  in  the 
psalmody  for  the  burial  service  on  the  same 
primitive  model.  The  English  Prayer  Book  pro- 
vided two  psalms,  thirty-nine  and  ninety,  each  of 
which,  after  the  Anglican  manner,  was  to  be 
used  entire,  and  each  to  be  followed  by  the 
Gloria.    The  American  revisers  omitted  several 


44      THE  PSALTER  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

somewhat  irrelevant  or  inappropriate  verses 
from  each  of  these  psalms,  making  of  the  two 
one  anthem,  and  emphasized  the  unity  of  this, 
as  over  against  the  Anglican  idea  of  separate 
psalms,  by  placing  one  Gloria  at  the  end  of  the 
whole. 

The  late  revision  of  our  Prayer-book  (1892) 
has  in  some  directions  advanced  farther  toward 
primitive  models  in  the  treatment  of  the  Psalter, 
as  in  the  increase  in  the  number  of  the  selections, 
and  of  the  special  psalms  for  special  occasions, 
and  in  others  it  has  receded  toward  the  Anglican 
model;  but  in  general  practice  there  is  little 
change.  In  fact,  the  ordinary  American  use 
of  the  Psalter  may  be  said  to  be  to-day,  as  it  has 
always  been,  practically  identical  with  the  Angli- 
can use. 

I  have  confined  myself  to  the  questions  of 
form  and  use  in  dealing  with  my  subject,  because 
the  psalms  are  far  too  large  a  theme  to  cover  in 
one  lecture  in  all  its  aspects.  I  should  have  liked 
to  have  studied  with  you  the  occasion  of  the  com- 
position of  some  of  the  wonderful  hymns  of  the 
Psalter,  analyzed  their  beauties  and  followed 
their  use  not  only  in  the  Jewish,  but  also  in  the 
Christian    Church,    recalling   the    memories    of 


AND  IN  THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  4$ 

good  men  and  great  deeds  which  are,  as  it  were, 
entwined  about  them.  David  and  Simon  Mac- 
cabaeus,  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  and  the  temple 
of  Dan,  the  triumph  of  Israel  and  its  downfall, 
the  captivity  and  the  restoration,  priests  and 
prophets,  Babylonians  and  Persians,  Syrian  op- 
pressors and  Maccabaean  patriots  all  left  their 
mark  upon  the  Psalter.  Out  of  the  psalms  speak 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  life  of  the  people  of 
God  for  well-nigh  a  thousand  years.  And  after 
the  Psalter  was  finally  closed  as  a  collection  of 
hymns,  it  still  continued  to  live  in  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  the  people  of  God.  How  many  mar- 
tyrs have  not  these  psalms  upheld  in  persecu- 
tion, how  many  afflicted  souls  have  they  not 
consoled,  how  many  feet  have  they  not  guided 
into  the  way  of  peace!  They  have  comforted 
the  dying  as  they  passed  through  the  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death,  and  they  have  cheered 
armies  to  victory.  Henry  of  Navarre  made  the 
sixty-eighth  Psalm  his  battle  hymn;  and  when 
on  the  1 2th  of  September,  1683,  John  Sobieski 
descended  from  the  heights  of  the  Kahlenberg 
upon  the  hordes  of  the  Turks  besieging  Vienna, 
his  army  chanted  that  magnificent  Psalm,  one 
hundred  and  fifteen: 


46      THE  PSALTER   IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH 

Not  unto  us,  Jehovah,  not  unto  us, 
But  unto  Thy  name  give  glory, 
Because  of  Thy  love  and  Thy  truth. 
Why  do  the  nations  say  : 
"  Where  is  then  their  God  ?  " 
For  our  God  is  in  heaven  ; 
He  doth  whatsoever  He  will. 

Their  idols  are  silver  and  gold, 
The  work  of  men's  hands. 
Mouths  have  they — and  speak  not  ; 
Eyes  have  they — and  see  not  ; 
Ears  have  they — and  hear  not  ; 
Noses  have  they — and  smell  not  ; 
With  their  hands — they  touch  not  ; 
With  their  feet — they  walk  not  ; 
Neither  breathe  they  with  their  throat. 
Like  them  shall  they  be  that  make  them, 
Whosoever  doth  trust  in  them. 

O  Israel,  trust  in  Jehovah  ! 

He  is  their  help  and  their  shield. 
House  of  Aaron,  trust  in  Jehovah  ! 

He  is  their  help  and  their  shield. 
Ye  that  fear  Jehovah,  trust  in  Jehovah  ! 

He  is  their  help  and  their  shield. 

Jehovah  hath  been  mindful  of  us  ;  He  will  bless— 

Will  bless  the  house  of  Israel  ; 

Will  bless  the  house  of  Aaron  ; 

Will  bless  them  that  fear  Jehovah, 
Small  and  great  alike. 

Jehovah  give  you  increase, 

For  you  and  for  your  children. 


AND  IN  THE    CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  47 

Blessed  be  ye  of  Jehovah, 

Maker  of  heaven  and  earth. 
The  heavens  are  Jehovah's  heavens  ; 

But  the  earth  He  gave  to  the  children  of  men. 

The  dead  praise  not  Jehovah, 
They  that  go  down  into  silence  ; 
But  we  will  bless  J  ah 
Henceforth  and  for  ever. 
Halleluiah  ! 


Zbe  t^mns  of  tbe  Eucharist 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  RT.  REV.  A.  C.  A.   HALL,  D.D., 

Bishop  of  Vermont. 

THE  HYMNS  OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

Fragments  of  hymns  of  the  Apostolic  Church 
are  preserved  to  us  embedded  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment.* They  are  commonly  introduced  by  St. 
Paul  into  his  later  epistles  with  the  phrase, 
"  Faithful  is  the  saying  " — the  saying  familiar 
tQ  those  whom  he  is  addressing.  For  instance, 
in  the  first  Epistle  to  Timothy  there  is  a  frag- 
ment of  a  hymn  on  Redemption,  incorporated 
into  our  Eucharistic  Service  as  one  of  the  "  Com- 
fortable Words  "  : 

"  Christ  Jesus 
came  into  the  world 
to  save  sinners."  \ 

The  same  epistle  gives  a  hymn  on  our  Lord's 

*  See  Liddon's  Bampton  Lectures,  vi.,  pp.  332,  333    (16th  edi- 
tion, 1892),  where  the  Greek  is  printed  in  verse  arrangement. 
f  1  Tim.  i.  15. 


52  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE  EUCHARIST. 

Incarnation  and  Triumph  that  might  well  be 
styled  an  Apostolic  Carol: 

44  Who  was  manifested  in  the  flesh, 
justified  in  the  spirit, 
beheld  of  angels, 
proclaimed  to  the  nations, 
believed  on  in  the  world, 
received  up  into  glory."  * 

In  the  second  Epistle  to  Timothy  we  have  a  quo- 
tation from  a  hymn  on  the  Glories  of  Martyrdom: 

41  If  we  died  with  Him,  we  shall  also  live  with  Him  ; 
if  we  endure  with  Him,  we  shall  also  reign  with  Him  ; 
if  we  shall  deny  Him,  He  also  will  deny  us  ; 
if  we  are  faithless,  He  abideth  faithful  ; 
He  cannot  deny  Himself."  f 

In  the  Epistle  to  Titus,  a  hymn  on  the  Way  of 
Salvation: 

44  But  when  the  kindness  of  God  our  Saviour  and  His  love  toward 
man  appeared, 
Not  by  works  done  in  righteousness  which  we  did  ourselves, 
But  according  to  His  mercy,  He  saved  us, 
Through  the  washing  of   regeneration  and    renewing   of   the 
Holy  Ghost, 

*  i  Tim.  iii.  16.  The  reading  '6s  instead  of  0€<f*,  which  is 
adopted  by  the  Revised  Version,  makes  little  difference  in  the 
meaning.  For  the  Pre-existence  of  the  Person  is  implied  in  the 
verb  "  was  manifested." 

f  2  Tim.  ii.  i  r— 13. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  53 

Which  He  poured  out  upon  us  richly,  through  Jesus  Christ  our 

Saviour, 
That  being  justified  by  His  grace, 
We  might  be  made  heirs  according  to  the  hope  of  eternal  life."* 

Once  more,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  St. 
Paul  quotes  words  of  a  hymn  on  Baptism  or  Pen- 
itence, founded  on  a  passage  from  Isaiah.f 
"  Wherefore  it  [the  hymn]  saith: 

"  '  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest, 
And  arise  from  the  dead, 
And  Christ  shall  shine  upon  thee.'  "  % 

These  and  similar  "  hymns  and  spiritual  songs  " 
(referred  to,  it  may  be  noted,  in  Epistles  to  these 
same  Asiatic  churches, §  as  sung  in  gatherings  of 
the  faithful)  would  most  probably  have  been  used 
in  connection  with  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist,  which  was  at  once  the  great  occa- 
sion for  the  assembly  of  the  faithful,  the  distinc- 
tive and  central  act  of  Christian  worship,  and 
pre-eminently  the  Sacrifice  of  Praise  and  Thanks- 
giving. 

*  Tit.  iii.  4-7. 

flsa.  lx.  1. 

\  Eph.  v.  14. 

§Eph.  v.  19  ;  Col.  iii.  16.  "  Speaking  to  yourselves"  proba- 
bly refers  to  responsive  singing.  See  Keble's  Euc/iaristica/  Ador- 
ation, p.  48. 


54  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   EUCHARIST. 

Material  for  other  services,  corresponding  with 
what  in  later  language  we  should  call  the  Choir 
Offices,  was  already  provided  in  the  Psalter, 
though  doubtless  Christian  additions  were  made 
thereto,  as  in  our  doxology.  Distinctive  Chris- 
tian hymns  would  probably  have  at  any  rate  their 
chief  use  in  connection  with  distinctive  Chris- 
tian rites,  as  we  find  in  the  report  of  the  practice 
of  Christians  in  Asia  Minor  sent  by  the  Pro-con- 
■sul  Pliny  to  the  Emperor  Trajan.  The  Chris- 
tians were  accustomed,  he  had  learned,  to  meet 
on  a  stated  day  before  light,  and  to  sing  among 
themselves  responsively  a  hymn  to  Christ  as 
God,  and  to  bind  themselves  by  an  oath  (or  sacra- 
ment— the  pledge  was  probably  involved  in  the 
sacrament  as  we  should  use  the  word)  not  to 
commit  any  wickedness.* 

The  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  I  said,  would 
naturally  gather  round  itself  Christian  hymns. 
For  the  leading  idea  of  the  Sacrament  of  our 
Lord's  Body  and  Blood  was  that  expressed  in 
this  very  title  of  the  Eucharist,  the  Sacrifice  of 
Praise  and  Thanksgiving. 

Beside  the  spiritual  Food  thus  given,  and  the 


*  Plin.  Ep.  lib.  x.  ep.  97.       The  passage  is  quoted  by  Liddon, 
noton  Lectures,  vii. .  d.  ioq  Note. 


Bampton  Lectures,  vii.,  p.  399  Note. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  55 

pledge  of  Brotherhood  sealed  in  the  common 
participation  of  the  One  Loaf,*  a  solemn  plead- 
ing indeed  is  therein  made  of  the  merits  of 
Christ's  death — of  His  obedience  unto  death  f  — 
for  the  obtaining  for  those  participating  and  for 
all  His  whole  Church  the  remission  of  sins  and 
all  other  benefits  of  His  Passion.  This  aspect 
of  the  rite  was  fully  recognized  in  the  early 
Church;  but  above,  or  perhaps  we  may  more 
truly  say  behind  this,  was  the  idea  of  triumphant 
exultation  in  the  redemption  wrought  out  for 
mankind  by  the  Incarnation  and  victorious  Pas- 
sion of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  whose  life-giving 
Death  is  proclaimed  and  set  forth  before  Heaven 
and  earth  in  the  sacramental  Breaking  of  the 
Bread.} 

Chrysostom's  words  express  this,  which  was, 
I  believe,  the  central  conception  of  the  early 
Christian  Church,  "  The  awful  mysteries,  laden 
with  mighty  salvation,  are  called  Eucharist,  be- 
cause they  are  the  commemoration  of  many  ben- 
efits." §   " 

The  Lord  Himself  at  the  Institution  "  gave 

*  i  Cor.  xi.  17. 

f  Phil.  ii.  8. 

X  I  Cor.  xi.  26    KarayyeWsTe. 

§  Horn.  xxv.  in  Matt.  (Field's  edition,  vol.  i.,  p.  363). 


56  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

thanks  "  before  He  "  blessed  "  the  gifts.*  As 
the  High  Priest  of  all  creation,  the  First  be- 
gotten by  whom  and  for  whom  all  things  were 
made,  He  on  behalf  of  all  gave  thanks  to  the 
Father — His  and  ours — for  the  manifestation  of 
His  love  in  the  creation  of  the  world,  for  the 
high  destiny  to  which  He  designed  mankind,  for 
His  forbearance  with  fallen  man,  and  His  love 
in  devising  means  that  His  banished  be  not  ex- 
pelled from  Him,f  for  the  gift  of  His  Son  that 
whoso  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish  with 
the  fallen  world,  but  should  have  eternal  life  in 
fellowship  with  Himself.  Thus  (we  may  rever- 
ently assume)  He  gave  thanks  and  offered  Him- 
self a  willing  sacrifice  to  His  Father  and  for  His 
brethren  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  Father's 
purpose  in  their  redemption;  in  the  gifts  that 
He  blessed  offering  then  by  His  own  voluntary 
act  His  Body  to  be  broken,  His  Blood  to  be  shed, 
in  strife  with  the  powers  of  evil,  that  so  Fie  might 
rescue  His  brethren,  and  having  Himself  over- 
come the  sharpness  of  death,  might  open  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers.  He  then 
"  gave  thanks  "  for  the  redemptive  victory  which 

*  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  27.  See  Meditation  XII.,  with  the  appended 
Note,  in  The  Final  Tassovcr,  by  the  Rev.  R.  M.  Benson,  Vol. 
II.,  part  1.     (Longmans,  1895.) 

\  2  Sam.  xiv.  14. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  S7 

He  would  achieve  at  so  great  a  cost.  How  should 
we,  as  we  show  forth  the  victorious  struggle  to 
which  He  then  dedicated  Himself,  give  thanks 
at  once  with  Him  and  to  Him  who  loveth  us 
and  loosed  us  from  our  sins  by  His  Blood! 
"  Worthy  indeed  is  the  Lamb  that  hath  been 
slain  to  receive  the  power,  and  riches,  and  wis- 
dom, and  might,  and  honour,  and  glory,  and  bless- 
ing; for  Thou  wast  slain,  and  didst  purchase 
unto  God  with  Thy  Blood  men  of  every  tribe, 
and  tongue,  and  people,  and  nation,  and  madest 
them  to  be  unto  our  God  a  kingdom  and  priests; 
and  they  reign  upon  the  earth ."  * 
•  The  Eucharist  of  the  Christian  Church  is  the 
echo  or  the  continuation  of  the  Thanksgiving 
of  her  Lord  and  Head  as  He  instituted  the  holy 
mysteries  wherein  His  people  would  shew  forth 
His  victorious  death  until  He  came  again.  In 
the  older  Liturgies  the  verbal  thanksgiving, 
compressed  into  short  sentences  in  our  Common 
and  Proper  Prefaces,  was  expanded  at  great 
length,  recounting  the  benefits  of  Creation  and 
of  Redemption,  and  always  reaching  its  climax 
in  the  Sanctus  sung  by  all.f 

*  Rev.  i.  5,  v.  9-12. 

\  See   the  article  "  Preface  "  in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian 
Antiquities. 


58  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST. 

Part  of  one  such  Preface  or  Thanksgiving  may 
be  quoted  as  an  illustration  of  the  general  rule. 
The  Liturgy  called  after  St.  James,  used  at  Jeru- 
salem, is  not  only  itself  preserved,  but  we  have 
also  an  explanation  of  it  in  St.  Cyril's  instruc- 
tions to  those  preparing  for  admission  to  the 
Sacraments  delivered  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  in  the  year  347.* 

After  the  bidding  of  the  priest,  "  Lift  up  your 
hearts "  and  "  Let  us  give  thanks  unto  the 
Lord,"  with  their  familiar  responses  (the  same 
used  in  our  Liturgy  to-day  as  in  that  of  Jerusa- 
lem in  the  fourth  century),  the  Thanksgiving 
proceeds: 

"  It  is  very  meet  and  right,  becoming  us 
and  our  duty,  that  we  should  praise  Thee, 
and  celebrate  Thee  with  hymns,  and  give 
thanks  unto  Thee,  the  Maker  of  all  creat- 
ures, visible  and  invisible,  the  Treasure  of  all 
good,  the  Fountain  of  life  and  immortality, 
the  God  and  Lord  of  all  things,  whom  the 
heavens  and  the  heavens  of  heavens  praise,  and 
all  the  host  of  them;  the  sun  and  moon  and 
the  whole  company  of  stars;  the  earth  and  sea, 
and  all  that  arc  in  them;  the  celestial  congre- 

*  St.  Cyril's  Catechetical  Lectures  arc  translated  in  the  Oxford 
Library  of  the  Fathers,  Vol.  II.    Sec  Lect.  XXIII. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST  59 

gation  of  Jerusalem;  the  Church  of  the  first- 
born who  are  written  in  heaven;  the  spirits 
of  just  men  and  prophets;  the  souls  of  martyrs 
and  apostles;  angels  and  archangels,  thrones  and 
dominions,  principalities  and  powers,  the  tre- 
mendous hosts,  cherubim  with  many  eyes,  and 
seraphim  with  six  wings,  with  two  whereof  they 
cover  their  faces,  and  with  two  their  feet,  and 
with  two  they  fly,  crying  out  incessantly  one  to 
another,  and  singing  with  loud  voices  the  tri- 
umphal song  of  the  majesty  of  Thy  glory,  '  Holy, 
Holy,  Holy,  Lord  of  hosts,  heaven  and  earth  are 
full  of  Thy  glory.  Hosanna  in  the  highest. 
Blessed  be  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord.    Hosanna  in  the  highest.'  "  * 

The  angelic  intelligences  are  thought  of,  as 
in  the  representation  of  heavenly  worship  in  the 
Apocalypse,f  as  joining  with  redeemed  man  in 
the  praise  of  the  Thrice  Holy  (whose  almighty 
power  is  ever  exercised  according  to  infinite 
wisdom,  and  in  perfect  love)  for  the  manifesta- 
tion of  His  goodness.  :j:    "  Worthy  art  Thou,  our 


*  Translated  in  Bingham's  Christian  Antiquities,  Vol.  V.,  pp. 
88,  89.  See  Liturgies  Eastern  and  Western,  by  C.  E.  Ham- 
mond, p.  40. 

\  Rev.  iv.,  v. 

%  This  may  be  regarded  as  a  more   fundamental  idea  in  the 


60  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

Lord  and  our  God,  to  receive  the  glory  and  the 
honour  and  the  power:  for  Thou  didst  create  all 
things,  and  because  of  Thy  will  they  were,  and 
were  created."  "  Unto  Him  that  sitteth  on  the 
throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb,  be  the  blessing,  and 
the  honour,  and  the  glory,  and  the  dominion,  for 
ever  and  ever.    Amen." 

What  I  desire  particularly  to  emphasize,  what 
the  Hymns  of  the  Eucharist  naturally  suggest,  is 
the  joyous  character  of  the  Eucharistic  wor- 
ship, as  expressed  in  the  very  title  of  the  rite, 
and  as  expressive  of  the  joy  of  the  Christian  life. 

Early  Christians  did  not  think  of  themselves 
as  aliens  from  God  needing  to  be  reconciled; 
miserable  sinners  seeking  mercy  and  pardon — 
this  was  not  the  chief  aspect  in  which  they  re- 
garded themselves.  Reconciled  they  were  by 
the  Blood  of  Christ.  Washed,  sanctified,  and 
justified  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  by 
the  Spirit  of  our  God,*  they  had  access  with 

Tersanctus  than  that  of  the  Blessed  Trinity.  The  song  is  echoed 
in  the  vision  of  St.  John  from  the  Old  Testament  vision  of 
Isaiah.  This  earlier  truth  concerning  the  Character  of  God  finds 
fuller  expression  in  the  later  disclosures  of  distinctions  within  the 
Divine  Being,  which  teach  us  to  recognize  the  Son  as  the  Personal 
Wisdom,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  Personal  Love,  of  the  Father. 
*  i  Cor.  vi.  ii. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST.  6 1 

boldness  to  the  throne  of  grace  as  members  of 
the  Incarnate  Son.*  Accepted  in  Him  the  Be- 
loved^ they  did  not  plead  His  Death  for  the 
breaking  down  of  barriers  between  themselves 
and  God;  they  proclaimed  it  as  having  accom- 
plished their  deliverance,  and  as  they  thus  made 
their  boast  therein,  they  claimed  the  fruits  of 
that  victory,  the  benefits  of  His  Passion,  calling 
forth  its  virtue,  as  they  were  afresh  united  with 
Him  by  feeding  on  His  glorified  Humanity. 

The  Eucharist  is  no  repetition  of  the  Sacrifice 
once  offered;  but  its  continual  representation 
and  commemoration,  the  appointed  means  for 
calling  forth  and  applying  its  benefits. 

Here,  too,  the  Eucharist  is  a  counterpart  of 
the  pleading  of  our  Lord  for  us  in  Heaven.  We 
are  not  (in  spite  of  some  popular  hymns  or  de- 
votional manuals)  to  think  of  Him — glorified  at 
the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father  in  Heaven — at 
the  highest  place,  that  is,  of  honour  and  of  power 
— as  in  the  ordinary  sense  praying  for  us,  neither 
on  bended  knee  nor  by  petition.^:  "  He  has 
entered  into  Heaven  to  appear  in  the  presence 

*  Heb.  iv.  16. 
f  Eph.  i.  6. 

%  "  Interpellat  pro  nobis  Dominus  non  voce  sed  miseratione." 
Bede,  quoted  by  Bishop  Westcott,  on  i  St.  John  ii.  2. 


62  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST. 

of  God  for  us."  *  His  very  presence  pleads. 
"  He  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  for  us."  t 
His  mediation  is  not  in  the  way  of  asking  from 
the  Father,  but  rather  as  dispensing,  according 
to  His  knowledge  of  our  needs  and  in  answer  to 
our  prayers,  the  gifts  that  He  has  received,  of 
which  His  glorified  Manhood  has  been  made  the 
channel  of  communication.  % 

In  harmony  with  what  has  been  said  it  should 
be  noted  that  in  the  great  promises  held  out 
by  our  Lord  to  faithful  prayer  on  the  part  of  His 
disciples,  He  does  not  represent  Himself  as  only 
presenting  their  prayers  to  Another;  He  is  in  His 
own  Person  the  Object  of  Prayer;  //^receives 
and  answers  prayers. 

He  not  only  promises,  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,  If  ye  shall  ask  anything  of  the  Father 
in  My  Name,  He  will  give  it  you;  "  §  but  also, 
"  Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  in  My  Name,  that  will 
I  do,  that  the  Father  may  be  glorified  in  the 
Son."  I  So  St.  John  in  his  epistle  writes:  "  This 
is  the  boldness  that  we  have  toward  Him  (the 

*  Ileb.  ix.  24,  tiA<pavi(T&riva.i  virlp  r]/j.wp'. 
f  Heb.  vii.  25  ;    Rom.  viii.  34,  iyruyxdyei  virtp  rj^uiu. 
\  See  Fr.  Benson's  The  Final  Passover ,  Vol.  II.,  Part  1.,  pp. 
337.  sq. 

£  St.  John  xvi.  20,  comp.  xv.  16. 
||  St.  John  xiv.  13. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  63 

Son  of  God),  that,  if  we  ask  anything  according 
to  His  will,  He  heard h  us."  * 

It  will  at  once  be  felt  how  out  of  harmony  with 
this  view  of  the  triumphant  character  of  the 
Eucharistic  rite  (which  is  certainly  the  tone  of 
our  Consecration  Prayer)  are  many  of  the  devo- 
tions, in  prose  or  rhyme,  popularly  used  in  con- 
nection with  the  Holy  Communion.  These  too 
often  (and  from  very  different  sources)  take  as  a 
standpoint  for  Eucharistic  contemplation  the 
Cross  of  Calvary,  with  the  penitent  malefactor 
or  the  Magdalen  as  the  typical  worshipper, 
whereas  in  the  Eucharist  we  are  bidden  "  lift 
up  our  hearts  "  and  join  the  heavenly  worship 
of  Angels  and  Saints,  to  whose  company  we  have 
been  admitted,  realizing  that  we  "are  already 
come  unto  Mount  Sion,  and  unto  the  city  of 
the  living  God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem;  and  to 
innumerable  hosts  of  angels;  to  the  general  as- 
sembly and  Church  of  the  first-born  who  are 
enrolled  in  Heaven;  and  to  God  the  judge  of  all, 
and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect;  and 
'to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  a  new  covenant,  and 
to  the  Blood  of  sprinkling  that  speaketh  better 
than  that  of  Abel."  f 

*  1  St.  John  v.  14,  15. 
f  Heb.  xii.  22-24. 


64  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

Penitence  should  not  be  the  dominant  note 
in  our  approach  to  the  Lord's  Table  any  more 
than  in  our  recitation  of  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
The  "  Our  Father  "  is  the  prayer,  the  Eucharist 
is  the  worship,  and  both  express  the  attitude 
of  God's  redeemed  and  accepted  children.  We 
may,  alas,  have  fallen  from  our  Baptismal  posi- 
tion of  grace  and  privilege.  Penitence  and 
Reconciliation  are  then  to  precede  our  Euchar- 
istic  worship.  Even  in  the  service  itself,  the 
general  confession  and  absolution  are  provided 
:before  at  the  Sursum  Corda  we  enter  on  the 
more  solemn  and  jubilant  portion  of  the  rite. 
As  in  the  Levitical  rites,  reconciliation,  when 
necessary,  through  the  Sin-offering  and  the  Tres- 
pass-offering, must  prepare  the  way  for  the 
Burnt-offering  of "  sweet  savour  "  and  the  Peace- 
offering  of  a  sacrificial  feast,  which  finds  its 
realization  in  the  Christian  Eucharist.* 

Our  continual  Eucharists  celebrated  Sun- 
day by  Sunday,  or  more  often,  correspond  with 
the  annual  Paschal  solemnity  of  the  Jewish 
Church.  The  yearly  Passover  was  the  joyful 
commemoration  of  the  great  deliverance  from 

*  For  the  relation  of  the  Levitical  Sacrifices  to  the  Christian 
Mysteries,  see  The  Worship  of  the  Old  Covenant,  by  E.  F. 
Willis. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE  EUCHARIST.  6$ 

Egypt  by  virtue  of  the  original  Paschal  Sacri- 
fice. That  has  its  fulfilment  in  the  redeeming 
Sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  wrought  out  once  for  all 
in  the  Passion,  offered  at  His  entrance  into 
Heaven,  and  applied  at  our  Baptism.*  By  our 
continual  commemoration  thereof  we,  as  Israel, 
abide  in  the  covenant  with  God,  to  which  we 
have  been  admitted  by  that  sacrifice  whose  virt- 
ue we  continually  call  forth. 

Two  or  three  ritual  points  may  be  mentioned 
here  as  following  on  the  principles  we  have  con- 
sidered. 

(a)  The  celebration  of  the  Holy  Eucharist 
should  be  joyous.  It  betrays  a  miserable  appre- 
ciation of  the  real  character  of  the  rite  to  de- 
nude its  administration  of  musical  and  other 
ceremonial  embellishments  with  which  perhaps 
lesser  offices  of  worship  are  celebrated. 

{b)  With  this  conception  of  the  Sacrifice  of 
Praise  and  Thanksgiving  is  seen  to  harmonize 
the  custom  of  the  early  Church  in  many  parts, 
preserved  as  the  ordinary  rule  in  the  East,  not 
to  celebrate  the  holy  mysteries  on  Fasting  days, 
and  in  particular  the  instinctive  feeling  as  to  the 

*  Heb.  x.  10,  12,  14,  19-22. 

5 


66  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST. 

inappropriateness  of  Good  Friday  for  the  Eu- 
charistic  commemoration. 

(c)  The  loss  of  the  true  Eucharistic  idea  is  con- 
spicuously felt  in  the  change  in  modern  from 
primitive  rites  for  the  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Sacrament  in  connection  with  the  Burial  of  the 
Faithful.  While  praying  for  the  repose  of  the 
departed,  and  for  the  continual  increase  of  their 
joy,  the  leading  idea  of  the  early  Church  in  such 
rites  was  of  Thanksgiving  for  what  God  had 
done  for  them  and  in  them  whose  obsequies  she 
celebrated.  This,  of  course,  was  the  more  natural 
in  days  when  Christian  profession  involved,  if 
not  martyrdom,  at  least  the  risk  of  distinct 
worldly  loss.  It  was  equally  natural  that  as 
Christian  lives  became  less  unworldly,  the  note 
of  triumph  which  had  marked  Christian  deaths 
should  grow  more  faint,  and  that  the  penitential 
side  of  burial  services  and  of  the  pleading  of  our 
'Lord's  Sacrifice  as  a  part  thereof  should  become 
more  prominent.  But  the  attempt  to  banish 
every  trace  of  joy  from  a  Requiem  Mass,  as  in 
the  present  Roman  use,  surely  marks  a  declen- 
sion both  in  Christian  life,  and  in  the  conception 
of  the  meaning  of  the  shewing  forth  of  the  Lord's 
Death.* 

*  The  following  anthem  from  the  Russian  Burial  Service  shows 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  6 J 

Iii  proportion  as  Christians  have  taken  Christ's 
Death  as  a  law  of  life,  and  have  sought  to  make 
real  their  Baptism  into  His  Death,*  can  the 
"  shewing  forth  "  His  Death  have  its  true  mean- 
ing in  connection  with  their  burial.  So  far  as 
they  in  life  practically  regarded  His  Death  as 
a  mere  sacrifice  of  substitution,  the  natural 
thought  in  prayer  and  Eucharist  on  their  behalf 
when  they  have  departed  will  be  that  of  plead- 
ing for  those  under  sentence  for  mitigation  of 
their  punishment.  If  penitence  can  never  be 
absent  from  our  approach  to  God — until  the 
time  of  the  perfected  restitution  of  all  things — 
and  most  certainly  not  when  we  think  of  the 

the  combination  of  the  ideas  of  penitence  and  praise  in  the  older 
rites : 

Give  rest,  O  Christ,  to  Thy  servant  with  Thy  saints,  where  sor- 
row and  pain  are  no  more,  neither  sighing,  but  life  everlasting. 

Thou  only  art  immortal,  the  Creator  and  Maker  of  men  :  but 
we  are  mortal,  formed  of  the  earth,  and  unto  earth  must  we  re- 
turn :  for  so  didst  Thou  ordain  when  Thou  created  me,  saying, 
"  Dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return."  All  we  go 
down  to  the  dust,  and  weeping  o'er  the  grave  we  make  our  song  : 
Alleluia  !  Alleluia  !  Alleluia  ! 

Give  rest,  O  Christ,  to  Thy  servant  with  Thy  saints,  where  sor- 
row and  pain  are  no  more,  neither  sighing,  but  life  everlasting. 

Seethe  Guardian  for  April  i,  1896,  p.  511  ;  and  the  article, 
"Obsequies  of  the  Dead,"  in  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiqui- 
ties, Vol.  II.,  p.  1430. 

*  Rom.  vi.  3,  etc. 


68  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST. 

soul  giving  account  of  the  deeds  done  in  the 
body,  yet  surely  if  New  Testament  Christianity 
is  real  to  us,  penitence  will  not  be  the  only  or 
the  dominant  note — in  our  prayer  for  ourselves 
or  for  those  who  dead  to  the  world  live  unto 
God. 

All  this,  I  trust,  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  sug- 
gested by  the  title  which  is  given  in  the  Greek 
Liturgies  to  the  first  of  our  great  Eucharistic 
Hymns.  The  Tcrsanctus  is  styled  the  Triumphal 
(as  well  as  the  Seraphic)  Hymn.*  It  always 
followed,  or  was  sung  in  close  connection  with, 
the  great  Thanksgiving,  which  in  words  ex- 
pressed the  leading  idea  of  the  whole  Sacramen- 
tal rite. 

Turning  to  the  more  particular  consideration 
of  the  second  great  Eucharistic  hymn  in  our 
Service,  the  Gloria  in  Excclsis,  there  are  three 
or  four  points  of  interest  connected  with   the 

*  See  Hammond's  liturgies.  Glossary  tinder  "  Hymn,"  p.  380. 
The  Tersancius  must  be  distinguished  from  the  Trisagion,  aytoi 
6  @e6s,  ILyios  laxvp6s,  &yios  aSdvaros,  eXeriaou  7/juu?,  which  in  the 
Liturgies  of  St.  Chrysostom  and  of  St.  Mark  is  sung  in  connec- 
tion with  "The  Little  Entrance,"  or  solemn  bringing  in  of  the 
Book  of  the  Gospels.  In  the  Roman  ritural  it  is  used  in  the  ser- 
vice of  "  The  Reproaches  "on  Good  Friday,  and  still  in  the  Greek 
form. 


THE   HYMNS   OF   THE   EUCHARIST.  69 

liturgical  use  of  different  portions  of  the 
hymn.* 

1 .  The  entire  hymn  fas  we  know  it)  is  of  Greek 
origin,  perhaps  translated  into  Latin  by  Hilary 
of  Poictiers,  to  whom  by  many  the  composition 
of  the  greater  part  has  been  (without  doubt 
erroneously)  ascribed.  It  is  found,  with  some 
variations  from  the  ordinary  form,  in  the  Apos- 
tolical Constitutions  under  the  title  (in  later 
manuscripts)  of  "  A  Morning  Prayer."  \ 

In  the  Alexandrian  manuscript  of  the  Bible, 
known  to  students  as  Codex  A,  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum,  which  probably  belongs  to  the 
fifth  century,  the  Gloria  in  Excclsis  is  inserted 
after  the  Psalms  with  thirteen  other  hymns, 
mostly  taken  from  Holy  Scripture.:}:  There,  too, 
it  is  called  "  a  Morning  Hymn." 

In  Western  as  in  Eastern  books  of  devotion 
it  is  prescribed  for  morning,  and  especially  for 
Sunday  morning,  use. 

The  early  use  of  the  hymn  as  a  whole  was  not 

*  See  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  706, 
707  ;  and  Scudamore's  Xotitia  Eucharistica,  Chapter  x., Section  vi. 

f  Bk.  vii. .  ch.  47. 

%  These  65oi  are  all  given  at  the  end  of  Vol.  III.  of  Swete's  The 
Old  Testament  in  Greek  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1894). 
To  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  are  added  verses,  some  of  them  forming 
part  of  the  Te  Deumt  some  of  them  taken  from  the  Psalter. 


70  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE  EUCHARIST. 

connected  with  the  Eucharist.  Only  the  first  and 
Scriptural  sentence,  the  Angels'  Song  proper,  is 
found  in  any  Greek  or  Oriental  Altar  Service; 
iand  this  is  not  common,  nor  does  it  always  oc- 
cupy the  same  place  in  the  Liturgy.  In  the  Nes- 
torian  Liturgy  of  the  Holy  Apostles  *  (which 
is  as  old  as  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century) 
this  first  sentence  actually  opens  the  service, 
being  evidently  intended  in  its  place  here,  as  in 
the  introductory  parts  of  other  Liturgies,  to 
foreshadow  and  welcome  the  coming  of  Christ 
in  the  Sacrament,  as  the  heavenly  host  her- 
alded His  advent  in  the  flesh. 

"Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace, 
good- will  towards  men."  \ 

That  which  the  angels  proclaimed  as  the  ob- 
ject of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Redeemer,  we  re- 
joice in  as  the  result  of  His  mission. 


*  /.  e.  SS.  Adaeus  and  Maris.  See  Hammond's  Liturgies,  In- 
troduction, p.  xxii.,  and  p.  267. 

f  It  is  noteworthy  that  while  the  manuscripts  of  St.  Luke  ii.  14 
vary  between  evSoxia  and  euS'jKi'a?,  in  the  Hymn  evhoKia  is  always 
found.  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities,  Vol.  I.,  p.  737. 
For  a  short  discussion  of  the  two  readings  see  Appendix  C  to 
The  Songs  of  the  Holy  Nativity,  by  Canon  Bernard.  (Mac- 
millan,  1895.) 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  7 1 

•  In  early  Western  Liturgies  likewise  probably 
this  first  sentence  alone  was  sung,  and  in  a  cor- 
responding place,  near  the  beginning  of  the  ser- 
vice, the  remaining  portion  of  the  hymn  being 
incorporated  into  the  Eucharistic  office  at  a  later 
date,  and  the  whole  hymn  then  being  sung  (as 
now  in  the  Roman  use)  in  the  place  for  which  the 
opening  sentence  was  naturally  fitted. 

When  introduced  into  the  Roman  Liturgy,  for 
a  long  period  the  hymn  was  reserved,  it  may  be 
remarked,  for  occasions  when  a  bishop  cele- 
brated the  Sacrament.  This  distinction  was  not 
observed  in  Gallican  rituals. 

The  whole  hymn  was  so  well  established  in  the 
West  by  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century,  that 
it  was  frequently  "  farsed  "  with  interpolations 
specially  appropriate  (or  considered  so)  to  par- 
ticular festivals.* 

2.  The  third  part  of  the  hymn,  "  Thou  only 
art  holy,  Thou  only  art  the  Lord,  Thou  only,  O 
Christ,  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  art  most  high  in 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father,"  corresponds 
closely  with  the  response  made  by  the  people 
to  the  proclamation  of  the  priest  in  the  ancient 
liturgies,  as  he  elevated  the  consecrated  gifts, 

*  See  Notitia  Eucharistica,  pp.  695,  696. 


7  2  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

and  cried,  ra  ayia  tois  ay  tot?,  Sane t a  Sanctis,, 
"  Holy  things  for  holy  persons."  St.  Cyril  of 
Jerusalem  thus  explains  and  paraphrases  the 
formula;  "  Holy  are  the  gifts  presented,  since 
they  have  been  visited  by  the  Holy  Ghost  [in 
response  to  the  Invocation] ;  holy  are  you  also, 
having  been  vouchsafed  the  Holy  Ghost  [in  Con- 
firmation]; the  Holy  Things  therefore  corre- 
spond to  holy  persons."  * 

This  proclamation  is  answered  by  the  people 
in  various  forms,  all  breathing  worship  to  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  acknowledging  Him,  with 
the  Father  and  the  Spirit,  as  alone  the  Holy  One. 
For  instance,  in  the  common  Greek  Liturgy  (St. 
Chrysostom's)  they  say,  "  One  is  holy,  One  is 
the  Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  glory  of  God  the 
Father."  Or  in  the  Clementine  form,  which 
embodies  at  this  point  the  Angels'  Song,  as  well 
as  the  Hosanna,  which  ordinarily  followed  the 
Tcrsanctus:  "  One  is  holy,  One  is  the  Lord,  Jesus 
Christ,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father,  blessed 
forever.  Amen.  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace,  good-will  towards  men.    Ho- 

*  St.  Cyril's  Catechetical  Lectures,  translated  in  the  Library  of 
the  Fathers,  Lecture  XXIII.,  p.  278.  It  should  be  needless  to 
state  that  at  a  point  much  earlier  in  the  service  the  unbaptized 
and  the  excommunicate  had  been  dismissed  from  the  Church. 


THE  HYMNS  OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  73 

sanna  to  the  Son  of  David.  Blessed  is  He  Who 
cometh  in  the  Name  of  the  Lord;  God,  the  Lord; 
and  hath  appeared  to  us.  Hosanna  in  the  high- 
est." * 

It  should  be  noted  that  in  the  early  Liturgies 
the  worship  paid  to  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  this 
point,  as  throughout  the  service,  is  distinctly  not 
limited  to  His  presence  in  the  Sacrament.  It  is 
rather  directed,  as  in  our  Gloria  in  Excelsis,  to 
Him  Who,  while  vouchsafing  a  special  manifes- 
tation of  His  Presence  in  the  Sacrament,  "  sit- 
teth  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father."  His 
Sacramental  Presence  is  no  coming  down  from 
His  glory,  no  return  to  conditions  of  earthly  lim- 
itation. It  is  rather  because  He  is  removed  by 
the  Ascension  from  all  such  limitations  that  He 
can  manifest  Himself,  according  to  His  good 
pleasure,  and  in  ways  of  His  appointment,  at  any 
and  every  time  and  place. 

A  prayer  which  in  the  Liturgies  of  St.  Basil 
and  St.  Chrysostom,  with  a  corresponding 
form  in  those  called  after  St.  Mark  and  St.  James, 
immediately  precedes  the  Elevation,  may  make 
this  clear:  "  Give  ear,  O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  our 
God,  from  Thy  holy  habitation,  and  from  the 

*For  various  responses  to   the    Sancta   Sanctis,   see   Notitia 
Eucharistica,  pp.  597-600. 


74  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

glorious  throne  of  Thy  kingdom,  and  come  to 
sanctify  us,  Thou  that  sittest  above  with  the 
Father,  and  art  present  invisibly  with  us  here; 
and  by  Thy  mighty  hand  vouchsafe  to  impart 
to  us  of  Thy  undefiled  Body  and  precious  Blood, 
and  through  us  to  all  Thy  people."  * 

3.  The  clause,  "  We  praise  Thee,  we  bless 
Thee,  we  worship  Thee,  we  glorify  Thee,  we  give 
thanks  to  Thee  for  Thy  great  glory,"  is  with 
little  doubt  derived  from  the  Liturgies  named 
after  St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom,  where  a  sim- 
ilar sentence  of  worship  is  sung  by  the  choir  be- 
tween the  recital  of  Our  Lord's  Words  of  Insti- 
tution-and  the  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost: 
"  We  hymn  Thee,  we  bless  Thee,  we  give  thanks 
to  Thee,  O  Lord;  and  pray  to  Thee,  our  God." 

There  is  an  interesting  addition  to  the  hymn 
at  this  point  in  the  Scottish  Communion  Service, 
which  our  American  fathers  did  not  adopt  along 
with  the  Prayer  of  Consecration.  Following, 
though  not  exactly,  the  version  of  the   Gloria 


*  Hammond's  Liturgies,  pp.  121,   128  ;  Notitia  Eucharistica, 

pp.  850,  851  ;  Introduction,  p.  xxvi. 

This  sort  of  Eucharistic  Adoration,  defended  by  Mr.  Keble  in 
his  treatise  on  the  subject  (See  especially  pp.  57,  72,  141,  118)  is 
plainly  distinct  from  such  practices  as  are  connected  with  the  Res- 
ervation of  the  Holy  Sacrament  for  the  purpose  of  Worship,  e.g., 
Benediction,  Exposition,  Visits  to  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   EUCHARIST.  75 

given  in  the  Alexandrian  manuscript  of  the 
Bible,  the  Scottish  rite  expands  this  doxology 
to  include  a  distinct  recognition  of  Each  Person 
of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  adding  after  "  O  Lord 
God,  heavenly  King,  God  the  Father  Almighty  " 
— "  and  to  Thee,  O  God,  the  only  begotten  Son 
Jesu  Christ;  and  to  Thee,  O  God,  the  Holy 
Ghost."  * 

4.  The  insertion  in  the  English  Prayer-book 
of  1552  (and  retained  in  ours)  of  the  third  ad- 
dress to  the  Lamb  of  God  (the  repetition  of  the 
clause,  "  Thou  that  takest  away  the  sins  of  the 
world,  have  mercy  upon  us  "),  which  is  not  found 
in  any  Greek  or  Latin  copy  of  the  hymn,  if  acci- 
dental in  its  origin,  is  remarkable  as  coinciding 
both  with  the  change  in  the  place  of  the  hymn 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  service,  and 
with  the  omission  from  the  prescribed  service 
of  the  trine  repetition  of  the  Agnus  Dei  after 
the  Prayer  of  Consecration.  The  insertion  pro- 
vides the  familiar  prayer,  now  embedded  in  the 
hymn,  still  after  the  Consecration,  and  in  con- 
nection with  the  pleading  of  the  Sacrifice. 

The  prayer  we  note  is  addressed  to  the  Vic- 
torious Victim,  the  Lamb  Who  has  been  slain, 

*  See  the  interesting  note  in  Bishop  Dowden's  Annotated  Scottish 
Communion  Office.    (New  York  :  Whittaker,  1884),  pp.  223-231. 


7  6  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE  EUCHARIST. 

but  Who  stands  triumphant  before  the  throne, 
as  One  in  inmost  being  and  in  glory  with  Him 
that  sits  upon  the  throne.*  It  calls  on  Him 
Who  noiv  "  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world," 
and  abolishes  it,  having  in  the  Passion  borne  its 
'burden  and  broken  its  power.  To  Him  our  ex- 
alted Saviour  we  cry  to  "  receive  our  prayer,"  to 
"  take  away  our  sins,"  by  the  communication  of 
His  holiness,  as  we  feed  upon  His  Body  and 
Blood,  and  are  made  thereby  partakers  of  His 
Divine  Nature,  as  He  vouchsafed  to  partake  of 
our  human  nature. 

"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  ! 
Into  the  sacred  flood 
Of  Thy  most  precious  blood 

My  soul  I  cast  ! 
Wash  me  and  make  me  clean  within, 
And  keep  me  pure  from  every  sin, 

Till  life  be  past."  \ 

How  could  the  Eucharistic  Service  better  end 
than  with  this  Hymn  of  mingled  praise  and 
prayer  to  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne  and 
to  the  Lamb?  We  may,  it  seems  to  me,  be 
thankful  for  the  transposition  of  the  Gloria  in 
Excclsis  from  the  opening  of  the  service  (where 
in  its  complete  form  it  is  hardly  appropriate) 

*  Rev.  v.  6,  sqq. 

f  Matthew  Bridges,  in  The  Hymnal,  No.  96. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE  EUCHARIST.  'J J 

to  its  close,  where  the  hymn  at  once  (i)  gathers 
up  the  leading  ideas  of  the  whole  rite;  (2)  serves 
as  a  thanksgiving  for  the  gift  we  have  received, 
such  as  was  commonly  found  in  the  ancient 
Liturgies,  the  Roman  herein  departing  from  the 
general  use;  *  and  (3)  may  further  remind  us  of 
the  "  hymn  "  which  the  Lord  and  the  Apostles 
sang  after  the  first  Eucharist, f  before  going  forth 
from  the  joyous  and  voluntary  offering  in  theUp- 
'per  Chamber  to  the  sorrowful  execution  of  that 
oblation  in  Gethsemane,  at  Gabbatha  and  Gol- 
gotha.;): In  glad  remembrance  of  His  redeem- 
ing struggle,  we  offer  ourselves  along  with  Him, 
our  souls  and  bodies,  a  living  sacrifice  to  God, 
and  go  forth  from  our  Eucharistic  worship  to  do 
all  such  good  works  as  He  has  prepared  for  us  to 
walk  in,  ready,  after  the  example  of  our  Lord 
and  Elder  Brother,  to  do  and  dare  and  bear  all 
things  for  the  Father's  glory  and  the  brethren's 
good. 

"Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,    good-will 
towards  men." 

*See  Palmer's  Origines  Liturgies:,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  157,  15S  ; 
Scudamore,  p.  690. 

\  St.  Matthew  xxvi.  30.  Probably  "the  great  Hallel,"  Pss. 
cxiii.-exviii.  See  Meditation  XLVII.  in  Fr.  Benson's  Final  Pass- 
over, Vol.  II.,  Part  1. 

%  See  Bishop  Andrewes's  Devotions,  "An  Act  of  Thanksgiving." 


Ibpmns  of  tbe  2>aii?  Offices. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE   RT.   REV.  JOHN   HAZEN  WHITE,   D.D., 

Bishop  of  Indiana. 

HYMNS    OF    THE    DAILY    OFFICES. 

Let  the  word  of  Christ  dwell  in  you  richly  in  all  wisdom  ; 
teaching  and  admonishing  one  another  in  psalms,  and  hymns,  and 
spiritual  songs,  singing  with  grace  in  your  hearts  to  the  Lord. 

— Colossians  Hi.  16. 

44  Over  his  keys  the  musing  organist, 
Beginning  doubtfully  and  far  away, 
First  lets  his  fingers  wander  as  they  list, 

And  builds  a  bridge  from  Dreamland  for  his  lay  ; 
Then  as  the  touch  of  his  loved  instrument 

Gives  hope  and  fervor,  nearer  draws  his  theme, 
First  guessed  by  faint  auroreal  flushes  sent 
Along  the  wavering  vista  of  his  dream." 

— Lowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal. 

It  is  in  somewhat  of  this  spirit  that  we  ap- 
proach the  study  of  the  hymns  of  the  Nativity 
which  constitute  the  canticles  of  the  daily  offices. 
With  a  diffidence  begotten  of  the  sense  that  our 
theme  is  three  simple  hymns  uttered  centuries 
agone  by  three  humble  souls  we  approach  our 

6 


82  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

subject  timidly  and  with  an  air  of  irresolution. 
As  the  bird  circles  about  its  perch,  uncertain 
where  to  alight,  and  then,  emboldened  by  the 
welcome  that  awaits  it,  drops  to  the  first  invit- 
ing twig,  only  to  spring  from  branch  to  branch 
in  joyous  ecstasy  of  home,  so  is  the  soul  led  along 
from  truth  to  truth,  from  glory  to  glory,  until 
it  finds  itself  in  a  wealth  of  divine  treasure  which 
measures  the  value  of  the  works  we  are  study- 
ing and  the  exalted  purposes  which  they  may  be 
made  to  serve.  Small  and  great,  simple  and 
grand  are  thus  ever  blended  in  the  divine  econ- 
omy to  serve  the  purposes  of  the  great  Author 
of  being  and  life.  Glory  is  hidden  in  a  snow-flake, 
power  in  a  drop  of  dew,  majesty  in  the  lily  of  the 
field,  and  God  in  the  Virgin's  womb. 

And  so,  dropping  unconsciously  the  tardy  hes- 
itancy and  the  uncertain  movement  of  approach 
for  the  deeper  inspiration  of  eager  expectancy, 
we  press  on  to  the  grander  truths  treasured  here 
and  seek  to  probe  them  to  their  farthest  recesses 
and  their  fullest  blessing.  The  glory  and  power 
of  the  ocean  is  not  discovered  in  the  silent  sur- 
face shimmering  under  the  rays  of  the  sun,  but 
in  its  vasty  deep,  in  its  myriad  mysteries  lying 
below,  in  its  hidden  power  released  by  a  breath 
from  heaven.     So,  too,  under  the  finer  analysis 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  83 

of  spiritual  discernment,  the  hymns  of  the  Na- 
tivity, with  all  their  simplicity,  and  devoid  of 
that  wealth  of  adornment  which  characterizes 
the  poetry  of  the  East,  find  their  grandeur  in  the 
deep  truths  and  mighty  power  hidden  below. 
As  of  the  great  Master,  to  whose  honor  they  owe 
their  origin,  of  them  it  may  in  measure  be  said: 
"  He  has  no  form  or  comeliness;  and  when  we 
shall  see  him,  there  is  no  beauty  that  we  should 
desire  him."  As  the  sequence  I  trust  may  war- 
rant, I  have  no  hesitation  in  speaking  of  them 
as  beautiful  hymns.  In  speaking  of  these  three 
beautiful  hymns  I  shall  touch  first  the  circum- 
stances of  their  origin,  then  on  their  bearing 
on  the  more  august  truths  of  prophecy,  inspira- 
tion, divine  worship,  and  the  growth  of  the  di- 
vine life  in  man;  for  so  it  is  as  we  linger  lovingly 
on  the  simple  events  that  cluster  about  the  com- 
ing of  our  dear  Lord  in  human  form,  there  steals 
in  upon  the  soul  the  consciousness  that  mighty 
forces  are  at  work  here,  designed  to  dismantle 
the  bulwarks  of  sin,  Satan,  and  death,  and  build 
the  temple  of  eternity  and  the  kingdom  of  light, 
and  we  are  swept  on  into  the  contemplation  of 
the  mind  of  God  and  the  modes  of  His  operation 
and  comprehension  with  which  the  events  of 
time  and  eternity  are  enclosed  in  a  word,  as  the 


84  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

deep  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand;  swept  on  in 
thought,  I  say,  until  we  begin  to  realize  that 
these  simple  hymns  hold  in  their  utterances 
in  perfect  harmony  the  intricate  history  of  God's 
dealings  past,  the  tenderness  and  mercy  of  God's 
kingdom  future,  which  resolve  inspiration  and 
prophecy  of  all  their  difficulties,  invest  divine 
worship  with  all  its  glory  and  power,  and  enrich 
human  nature  with  all  its  grace  and  refinement 
under  the  magic  influence  of  that  holy  term, 
sanctification;  "  This  is  the  will  of  God,  even 
your  sanctification." 

Let  your  minds  dwell  for  a  short  period  on  the 
origin  of  these  three  hymns;  how  closely  knit 
together  they  are  in  point  of  time,  how  harmo- 
nious in  expression,  what  a  unity  of  purpose 
marks  their  utterance,  and  yet  how  perfectly  in- 
dependent of  each  other.  Zacharias,  the  doubt- 
ing priest,  yet  intimately  familiar  through  his 
daily  vocation  with  the  oracles  of  God,  his  mind 
stored  with  all  the  vivid  forecasts  of  coming 
Messiah,  had  spent  the  time  of  his  enforced 
suspension  in  dumb  contemplation  of  the  maj- 
esty and  mercy  of  God.  "  It  was  all  most  fitting. 
The  question  of  unbelief  had  struck  the  priest 
dumb,  for  most  truly  unbelief  could  not  speak, 
and  the  answer  of  faith  restored  to  him  speech, 


HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY   OFFICES.  85 

for  most  truly  doth  faith  loose  the  tongue.  The 
first  evidence  of  his  dumbness  had  been  that  his 
tongue  refused  to  speak  the  benediction,  and 
the  first  evidence  of  his  restored  power  was  that 
he  spake  the  benediction  of  God  in  a  rapturous 
burst  of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  The  sign  of 
the  unbelieving  priest  standing  before  the  awe- 
struck people  vainly  essaying  to  make  himself 
understood  by  signs  was  most  fitting;  most  fit- 
ting also  that  when  they  made  signs  to  him 
what  the  new-born  child  should  be  called  he  burst 
in  their  hearing  into  a  prophetic  hymn:  "  * 

Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel ;  for  he  hath  visited  and  re- 
deemed his  people, 

And  hath  raised  up  a  mighty  salvation  for  us  in  the  house  of  his 
servant  David  ; 

As  he  spake  by  the  mouth  of  his  holy  Prophets,  which  have  been 
since  the  world  began  ; 

That  we  should  be  saved  from  our  enemies,  and  from  the  hand  of 
all  that  hate  us  ; 

To  perform  the  mercy  promised  to  our  forefather,  and  to  re- 
member his  holy  covenant  ; 

To  perform  the  oath  which  he  sware  to  our  forefather  Abraham, 
that  he  would  give  us, 

That  we,  being  delivered  out  of  the  hand  of  our  enemies,  might 
serve  him  without  fear, 

In  holiness  and  righteousness  before  him,  all  the  days  of  our 
life. 

*  Edersheim's  Life  of  Christ,  Vol.  I. 


86  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

And  thou,  child,  shalt  be  called  the  prophet  of  the  Highest ;  for 

thou  shalt  go  before  the  face  of  the  Lord  to  prepare  his  ways  ; 
To  give  knowledge  of  salvation  unto  his  people,  for  the  remission 

of  their  sins, 
Through  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God  ;  whereby  the  day-spring 

from  on  high  hath  visited  us, 
To  give  light  to  them  that  sit  in  darkness,  and  in  the  shadow  of 

death,  and  to  guide  our  feet  into  the  way  of  peace. 

Simple  as  is  this  outburst  of  praise,  there  is  in 
it  that  which  challenges  not  admiration  alone, 
but  holy  awe.  This  is  not  human  nature  under 
its  ordinarily  expressed  action,  but  human  nat- 
ure tempered,  sublimated  by  some  inner  power, 
and  lifted  up  to  a  height  which  human  nature 
unaided  never  attained  and  never  can  attain. 
The  consciousness  of  release  from  an  affliction 
than  which  there  can  be  none  greater  finds  no 
recognition  in  the  sublime  utterances.  The 
joyous  sense  of  fatherhood,  of  escape  from  the 
unutterable  loneliness  of  childlessness,  is  smoth- 
ered under  the  jubilant  emphasis  of  the  fulfilled 
purposes  of  God  to  the  human  race.  What  a 
reaching  back  is  there  in  these  simple  words 
over  the  centuries  that  were  gone.  What  a 
gathering  in  of  the  ages  to  come.  What  an  in- 
terpretation of  promise,  what  an  unfolding  of 
prophecy,  what  a  sweet  and  holy  blending  of  the 
temporalities  of  Israel  with  the  spiritualities  of 


HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  87 

the  kingdom  of  Christ,  what  a  harmonizing  of  the 
mind  of  God  with  the  life  of  man,  what  an  over- 
leaping of  existing  limitations  in  divine  admin- 
istration, even,  what  a  comprehension  of  the 
brotherhood  of  the  human  race.  Nor  does  the 
close  connection  that  seems  to  exist  between 
this  beautiful  hymn  and  the  eighteen  prayers  of 
the  temple  service  with  which  as  a  priest  he  was 
most  familiar  diminish  aught  from  the  awe  with 
which  we  contemplate  its  first  utterance,  for  it  is 
characteristic  of  human  nature  under  the  sense 
of  great  personal  benefit  to  sink  all  else  in  the  joy 
with  which  it  contemplates  its  latest  blessing. 

If  we  pass  from  the  song  of  Zacharias  to  that 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  we  shall  meet  even  greater 
difficulty  in  reconciling  the  sweet,  simple,  and 
yet  sublime  utterances  with  conditions  of  human 
nature  under  which  they  were  uttered.  What 
human  heart  is  capable  of  fathoming  the  con- 
flicting emotions  struggling  for  mastery  in  the 
soul  of  the  betrothed  maiden  under  the  signal 
honor  which  had  been  bestowed  upon  her  and 
the  equally  trying  ordeal  to  which  it  exposed 
her  ?  To  herself  alone  was  known  the  message 
of  the  angel.  To  her  espoused  huband  and  to 
the  world  must  soon  be  known  her  approaching 
motherhood.    There  is  a  tender  touch  of  human 


88  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

nature  in  the  narrative  that  almost  immediately 
she  sought  the  seclusion  and  privacy  of  the  hill 
country,  and  the  companionship  of  one  who 
could  share  her  knowledge  and  sympathize  with 
her  hopes  and  fears.  Who  can  correctly  picture 
her  astonishment  as  she  hears  the  salutation 
of  her  kinswoman,  or  suspect  her  of  having  pre- 
pared an  answer  of  such  sublimity  as  is  presented 
in  the  Magnificat  ?  When  we  reflect  that,  while 
the  angel  had  conveyed  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
the  tidings  of  her  kinswoman's  honor,  no  intima- 
tion had  been  imparted  to  Elizabeth  that  a 
higher  honor  should  come  to  her  home  than  the 
birth  of  her  distinguished  son,  her  salutation 
to  her  cousin  invests  itself  with  deeper  mystery 
and  dignity  unsurpassed.  "  To  be  more  precise, 
the  words  which  rilled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  she 
spake  were  the  mother's  utterance  to  the  moth- 
er, of  the  homage  which  her  unborn  babe  of- 
fered to  her  Lord,  while  the  answering  hymn  of 
Mary  was  the  offering  of  that  homage  unto  God. 
It  was  the  antiphonal  morning  psalmody  of  the 
Messianic  day  as  it  broke,  of  which  the  words 
were  of  the  old  dispensation,  but  the  music  of  the 
-new."  *  If  it  were  possible  to  suspect  that  the 
song  of  Zacharias  was  no  more  than  the  happy 

*  Edershcim's  Life  of  Christ,  Vol.  I. 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  89 

blending  of  ideas  with  which  the  learned  priest 
had  been  long  familiar  through  the  recitation 
of  his  daily  offices,  all  suspicion  of  such  origin 
must  fade  away  in  the  case  of  this  simple  maiden 
overpowered  by  her  condition  and  confronted 
by  such  an  unexpected  and  startling  salutation. 
But  there  is  no  confusion,  no  embarrassment, 
no  anxiety,  no  fear  here.  Serenity  rules  her 
heart,  confidence  her  attitude,  and  trust  her 
utterance;  not  feigned,  but  real.  Again  it  is  the 
glory  of  God,  His  faithfulness,  His  fulfilment, 
His  mercy,  His  might,  His  far-reaching  king- 
dom of  reconciliation  and  peace.  "  When 
Isaac  Newton  saw  an  apple  fall  from  a  tree  and' 
asked  himself  the  question  why  it  did  not  go  up- 
wards instead  of  downwards,  he  had  discovered 
the  great  law  which  governs  the  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  when  Mary  sur- 
veyed her  own  history  closely  she  recognized 
the  universal  principles  of  God's  government  in 
the  world,"  *  but  here  again  her  expression  of 
this  far  exceeds  the  grasp  of  an  ordinary  human 
mind,  and  again  this  single  note  attracts  to 
itself  the  unison  of  God's  dispensation  in  the 
ages.  Again  there  is  no  trace  of  the  personal, 
the  selfish,  the  narrow,  the  human.     All  this  is 

*  Liddon's  III  Lecture  on  the  Magnificat. 


90  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

refined  into  obscurity,  and  there  remains  only 
the  rapture  of  exultation  in  the  universal,  the 
divine,  the  permanent,  and  the  triumphant. 

My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord,  and  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in 
God  my  Saviour. 

For  he  hath  regarded  the  lowliness  of  his  handmaiden. 

For  behold,  from  henceforth  all  generations  shall  call  me  blessed. 

For  he  that  is  mighty  hath  magnified  me  ;  and  holy  is  his  Name. 

And  his  mercy  is  on  them  that  fear  him  throughout  all  genera- 
tions. 

He  hath  showed  strength  with  his  arm  :  he  hath  scattered  the 
proud  in  the  imagination  of  their  hearts. 

He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seat,  and  hath  exalted 
the  humble  and  meek. 

He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things  ;  and  the  rich  he 
hath  sent  empty  away. 

He  remembering  his  mercy  hath  holpen  his  servant  Israel  ;  as  he 
promised  to  our  forefathers,  Abraham  and  his  seed,  forever. 

The  sequence  of  events  and  the  sequence  of 
prophetic  hymns  are  together  completed  at  the 
presentation  of  the  Incarnate  One  in  the  temple. 
It  is  not  without  significance  surely  that  this  last 
beautiful  song  fell  from  the  lips  of  one  not  con- 
nected by  family  with  him  who  stands  for  the 
fall  and  rising  again  of  many  in  Israel,  but  stands 
as  a  type  of  that  vast  company,  who,  filled  with 
holy  meditation,  wait  in  hungry  expectation 
for  the  day  of  the  Lord,  and  of  whom  it  may  be 
said,  "  He  longed  to  see  my  day  and  he  saw  it 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  9 1 

and  was  glad."  That  every  age  has  such  cannot 
be  doubted.  That  God  graciously,  for  the  com- 
fort of  the  faithful,  found  one  such  and  conveyed 
to  his  hungry  soul  the  blessed  assurance  that  he 
should  not  see  death  till  he  had  seen  the  Lord's 
Christ,  is  a  mark  of  divine  graciousness  expres- 
sive of  the  minuteness  of  that  provision  which 
God  has  made  for  the  completeness  of  his  work. 
Still,  if  Elizabeth's  salutation  fell  with  startling 
surprise  upon  the  ears  of  her  lowly  kinswoman, 
much  greater  must  have  been  the  surprise  to 
both,  as  in  the  midst  of  the  temple  service  the 
aged  worshipper  and  the  humble  mother,  with 
her  offering  permitted  to  poverty,  come  to- 
gether, and  taking  the  babe  in  his  arms,  Simeon 
has  wrung  from  him  as  by  constraint  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  alone,  the  words  of  his  sweet  prophecy, 
which  of  all  others  have  endeared  themselves  to 
human  hearts  as  the  battle  draws  to  a  close  and 
the  sum  of  life's  fluctuating  aspirations  crystal- 
izes  in  the  single  beatitude  of  possessing  God. 
"  With  this  infant  in  his  arms  it  was  as  if  he 
stood  on  the  mountain  height  of  prophetic  vis- 
ion and  watched  the  golden  beams  of  sunrise 
far  away  over  the  Isles  of  the  Gentiles  and  then 
gathering  their  full  glow  over  his  beloved  land 
and  people.     There  was  nothing  Judaic,  quite 


92  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY   OFFICES. 

the  contrary,  only  what  was  of  the  old  Testa- 
ment in  what  he  first  said."  * 

Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to 

thy  word  : 
For  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation, 
Which  thou  hast  prepared  before  the  face  of  all  people  ; 
To  be  a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  and  to  be  the  glory  of  thy 

people,  Israel. 

While  there  was  for  the  aged  Simeon  no  self- 
forgetfulness  necessary  in  order  to  rise  to  his 
majestic  prophecy,  neither  was  there  anything 
to  prompt  its  expression.  While  there  was  the 
same  comprehension  of  the  far-reaching  pur- 
poses of  God  which  brought  his  hymn  into  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  other  two  and  rendered 
them  virtually  one,  is  it  too  much  to  say,  that 
the  human  race  in  the  person  of  this  aged  and 
devout  representative,  yielded  its  prompt  re- 
sponse of  praise  under  the  first  conscious  touch 
of  the  eternal  blessing  to  rest  upon  it  forever 
and  flowing  from  the  life  of  its  Incarnate  Lord? 

With  these  holy  hymns  before  us,  illumined 
by  the  events  that  gave  them  birth,  we  are  pre- 
pared for  their  deeper  study.  Almost  instantly 
and  instinctively  we  recognize  that  they  draw 
away  from  all  human  songs, and  align  themselves 

*  Edersheim's  Life  of  Christ,  Vol.  I. 


HYMNS    OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  93 

with  those  of  Moses  and  Miriam,  Hannah  and 
Deborah  in  the  older  dispensation,  and  that  song 
of  Moses  and  the  Lamb  which  in  anticipation  we 
hear  resounding  through  the  courts  of  heaven, 
the  unison  of  the  multitudinous  host  of  the  re- 
deemed; and  almost  as  readily  do  we  detect  that 
they  far  excel  all  others  of  their  own  class  in  the 
reach  of  their  vision,  and  the  delicacy  and  accu- 
racy of  their  interpretation  of  the  mind  of  God, 
reducing  to  a  common  purpose  the  history  of 
the  past  and  the  more  gracious  dispensation  of 
the  future,  as  the  great  Apostle  puts  it  when  he 
says,  "  According  to  the  eternal  purpose  which 
he  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus." 

If  these  beautiful  songs  are  marked  by  an  ab- 
sence of  all  themes  that  ordinarily  move  the 
human  soul  to  song,  and  all  form  in  which  the 
soul  so  moved  gives  expression  to  the  conscious 
emotion  within  it;  if  they  rise  to  grander  heights 
and  touch  with  greater  tenderness  the  as  yet  un- 
developed glories  of  which  human  nature  is 
capable,  the  secret  of  their  isolated  and  yet  com- 
mon distinction  is  to  be  found  alone  in  the  close 
contact  with  the  Incarnate  God.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  conceive  of  these  beautiful  songs  as  the  nat- 
ural productions  of  human  minds,  however 
gifted.     They   are  no   carefully   thought  -  out, 


94  HYMiYS    OF   THE   DAILY   OFFICES. 

elaborately  embellished  productions  of  the  li- 
brary. They  reflect  none  of  the  inquisitive  hu- 
man study  into  the  mysteries  of  nature,  none  of 
the  triumphs  of  human  effort  over  the  obstacles 
to  human  hope,  which  prompt  the  songs  of  com- 
mon, but  gifted,  singers.  They  are  the  spontane- 
ous, unpremeditated  outbursts  of  spiritual  song 
under  the  deep  impulse  imparted  to  those  who 
uttered  them  by  the  touch  of  the  Incarnate  Life. 
They  represent,  if  they  represent  anything  at  all, 
the  first  touch  of  the  Incarnation  and  its  effect 
upon  the  human  soul  and  human  mind,  presag- 
ing and  forecasting  all  that  glorious  refinement 
of  human  nature,  equipping  it  for  a  service  more 
glorious  than  the  tilling  of  fields  or  waging  of 
wars,  which  it  was  the  final  purpose  of  the  Incar- 
nation to  develop  by  the  diffusion  of  its  power 
and  purpose.  Ignorance,  weakness,  humility, 
self-interest,  are  as  nothing  under  the  potency  of 
this  persistent  influence.  The  light  of  the  world 
disinfects  it  of  the  seeds  of  disease  and  death, 
and  imparts  to  it  the  capacity  for  expansion,  as- 
cension, new  forms,  new  service.  Natural  en- 
dowments, with  all  their  natural  limitations,  are 
as  nothing  under  the  touch  of  the  Incarnate  Life. 
A  new  capacity  is  imparted  to  them,  a  new  inspi- 
ration, a  new  impulse,  a  new  possibility,  and  with 


HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY   OFFICES.  95 

it  a  new  expression  of  hope  and  joy  in  the  ful- 
filment of  hope.  That  is  the  great  purpose  of 
the  Incarnation,  to  impart  to  the  natural  man, 
mentally,  spiritually,  yes,  and  physically,  too, 
when  we  consider  the  great  truth  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body,  that  which  by  nature  he  can- 
not have.  As  the  sun  steals  over  the  horizon  and 
his  first  rays  touch  and  gild  the  ragged  mountain 
peaks,  hitherto  obscured  in  darkness,  each  sep- 
arate shaft  shoots  out  in  clear  outline,  and  be- 
tween lie  the  dark  caverns  to  be  penetrated  by 
the  later  rays  of  the  fuller  orb;  or  as  he  sends 
his  subtle  shaft  to  the  root  of  plant  and  flower, 
the  vital  fluid  springs  through  tingling  veins  to 
hungry  buds  that  wait  its  coming.  Buds  burst, 
blossoms  blow,  new  life  reigns  everywhere.  So 
under  the  touch  of  that  divine  communication 
flowing  through  the  Incarnate  Life  to  half-de- 
^veloped  human  souls,  nature  is  mollified,  relaxes 
its  stern  tension,  surrenders  its  severe  indiffer- 
ence, forgets  its  anxious  selfishness,  yields  to 
the  gladness  of  higher  inspiration,  abandons  it- 
self to  the  glorification  of  God,  enters  with  vivid 
sympathy  into  His  holy  and  eternal  purposes, 
realizing  the  burden  of  its  earlier  bondage  and 
the  dignity  with  which  God  hath  made  us  free. 
No  fact  is  perhaps  so  widely  confessed  and  prac- 


g6  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

tically  so  forgotten  as  God's  action  on  the  af- 
fairs of  the  world  and  of  men's  separate  lives. 
Dew  and  rain  are  natural  and  necessary  forces 
in  human  estimation;  "  He  bloweth  with  His 
•wind  and  the  waters  flow,"  but  that  He  lifteth 
up  or  casteth  down  is  inconceivable  when  applied 
to  the  multitude  of  men.  The  sea  may  yield  to 
His  impulse,  but  the  human  soul  cannot  be  af- 
fected by  His  purpose  and  His  power.  The  Holy 
Ghost  and  His  operations  must  be  invested  with 
unreality  or  suspected  of  impotence.  The  nat- 
ural effect  of  distinction  of  whatever  sort  is  to 
fill  the  soul  with  conscious  superiority  and  pride 
and  prepare  it  to  receive  adulation  and  praise. 
The  touch  of  God  is  designed  to  efface  all  this, 
and  impart  in  its  stead  humility,  dependence, 
obedience,  realizing  the  purpose  of  the  gift,  and 
rendering  merited  praise  to  the  Giver  in  His 
holy  presence.  It  is  this  transforming,  transfus- 
ing, glorifying  influence  which  is  apparent  in  the 
three  lives  we  are  studying  and  the  expression 
it  received  in  the  hymns  of  the  Nativity. 

And  again  permitting  ourselves  to  be  de- 
flected from  the  immediate  line  of  our  study, 
we  are  carried  on  to  the  contemplation  of  those 
two  intricate  truths,  prophecy  and  inspiration, 
which  play  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  evolution 


HYMNS   OF   THE   DAILY  OFFICES.  97 

of  the  great  mystery  of  Godliness,  and  carry  in 
themselves  that  evidence  of  God's  mysterious 
handiwork.  For  prophecy  and  inspiration,  in  all 
that  they  imply,  are  closely  and  intimately  inter- 
twined in  these  songs  of  the  Nativity;  prophecy, 
the  conveyance  to  the  human  soul  of  knowledge 
yet  hidden  with  God,  but  to  be  worked  out  by 
God  in  obedience  to  His  unchangeable  purpose; 
and  inspiration,  the  guidance  of  the  human  mind 
in  giving  expression  to  that  knowledge  and  in- 
terpretation to  divine  purpose  in  such  wise  as 
to  secure  the  eternity  of  truth  and  harmony  of 
plan  to  all  God's  working.  In  all  of  these  songs 
of  the  Nativity  there  is  mingled  to  a  marked 
and  most  positive  degree  both  prophecy  and 
inspiration  as  they  touched  the  person  of  the 
Christ,  gave  character  to  His  dispensation,  in- 
timation of  the  scope  of  its  operations,  or  sug- 
gestion of  the  deeper  element  in  human  nature 
designed  to  be  enriched,  glorified,  prepared  for 
receiving  the  further  favor  of  God,  the  gift  of 
eternal  life,  and  for  which  provision  was  made 
of  God  in  the  Incarnation.  The  human  mind 
through  its  philosophizings  has  built  up  enor- 
mous artificial  obstacles  to  lie  between  itself  and 
God  and  obstruct  and  delay  its  entrance  into 
that  rich  inheritance,  which  eve  hath  not  seen, 


98  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

nor  ear  heard,  nor  the  mind  of  man  conceived  of, 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  with 
undivided  loyalty  love  Him. 

Nothing  can  be  more  shallow  and  void  of  wis- 
dom than  the  limitations  which  the  human  mind 
would  impose  upon  divine  power  in  expressing 
itself  through  these  two  sacred  systems  em- 
ployed of  God  for  conducting  the  human  soul 
from  darkness  to  light,  from  ignorance  of  all 
things  to  knowledge  of  God,  the  author  of  all. 
For  consider,  first  of  all,  that  all  truth  is  but  an 
emanation  from  the  mind  of  God,  and  expresses 
that  which  from  all  eternity  has  reposed  in  the 
mind  of  God,  including  all  that  has  the  capacity 
of  endurance,  and  excluding  all  that  is  perishable 
because  opposed  to  the  mind  of  God;  and  then 
that  all  existence  and  all  operation  is  but  a  con- 
veyance from  God  of  that  truth  which  was  for- 
ever in  the  mind  of  God  to  creatures  of  His  own 
planning  and  capable  of  receiving  it,  containing 
it,  and  exhibiting  it  to  Himself  or  to  lower  orders 
of  intelligence  which  were  invested  with  some- 
thing of  His  own  capacity  for  knowledge.  Truth 
as  it  is  in  matter,  truth  as  it  is  in  force,  is  but  a 
conveyance  to  a  lower  order  of  creatures  of  that 
mysterious  existence  which  lies  wrapped  in  their 
being;  but  the  human  soul,  with  its  capacity  for 


HYMNS   OF  THE   DAILY  OFFICES.  99 

knowledge,  represents  nothing  else  than  the 
highest  order  of  God's  creatures,  to  which  He 
has  conveyed  a  gift  vouchsafed  to  none  other 
than  it,  that  of  sharing  the  knowledge  possessed 
by  Himself.  But  shall  it  be  said  that  God  has 
limited  this  higher  order  of  His  creatures  in  its 
acquisition  of  knowledge  to  its  labored  inter- 
pretation of  this  lower  order  to  which  God  has 
conveyed  some  portion  of  His  truth,  and  that 
He  who  has  conveyed  what  of  truth  lies  hidden 
in  a  drop  of  dew  or  in  the  wandering  winds  or 
the  shifting  sea  cannot  convey  the  same  truth 
to  the  human  soul  save  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  a  voiceless  and  soulless  material  exist- 
ence; or  that  God  cannot  and  shall  not  convey 
to  the  human  soul  the  knowledge  of  such  truth 
until  such  time  as  it  shall  have  been  first  con- 
veyed to  some  lower  order  of  creatures  and 
through  them  be  made  operative  in  the  realms 
of  nature  or  history.  I  am  touching  here  a  very 
deep  truth,  demanding  close  thought  for  its  in- 
terpretation. I  affirm  that  the  same  creator 
that  can  convey  to  heat  the  power  to  expand 
metals,  and  to  the  human  intelligence  the  capac- 
ity to  understand  that  fact  through  its  opera- 
tion, can  convey  that  knowledge  to  the  human 
intelligence  independent  of  its  operation  if  He 


100  HYMNS   OF   THE   DAILY  OFFICES. 

sees  fit  to  do  so.  The  conveyance  to  the  human 
soul  directly  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Incarna- 
tion even  is  not  more  marvellous  than  the  con- 
veyance of  the  same  knowledge  to  the  human 
soul  through  the  Incarnation  as  a  fact.  The 
transforming  of  water  into  wine  through  the  or- 
dinary process  of  the  growth  of  the  grape,  the 
expressing  of  its  juices,  and  the  process  of  fer- 
mentation carries  knowledge  to  the  observing 
and  reflecting  mind  of  man.  The  power  which 
conveyed  this  capacity  to  the  grape  can  convey 
the  knowledge  of  it  to  the  intelligent  creature 
man  without  the  help  of  unintelligent  matter. 

But  let  us  proceed  to  a  higher  aspect  of  the 
same  great  truth,  the  capacity  of  the  vessel  to 
contain,  hold,  and  express  truth  as  it  is  in  the 
mind  and  purpose  of  God  without  understand- 
ing it.  It  is  sometimes  considered  an  objection 
to  prophecy  and  inspiration  that  the  human 
agencies  through  which  they  were  expressed 
had  no  just  sense  of  the  significance  of  the  ser- 
vice the)-  were  rendering,  and  that  to  later  ages 
was  reserved  the  privilege  of  discovering  the 
deep  truths  unfolded  by  these  messengers  of 
long  ago.  Grant  all  this,  and  it  but  expresses 
a  universal  principle  of  existence.     It  is  incon- 


HYMNS    OF  THE  DAILY   OFFICES.  1 01 

testably  true  that  matter  contains  in  its  keeping 
and  is  constantly  expressing  profound  truth 
which  it  does  not  and  can  never  understand,  be- 
cause it  is  devoid  of  any  intelligent  faculty.  The 
earth  has  no  understanding  of  the  power  of  grav- 
itation, yet  it  holds  it  in  its  being,  exercises  it, 
and  is  regulated  by  it.  The  understanding,  then, 
of  the  mighty  gifts  of  God  and  the  power  which 
they  exercise  and  the  purpose  which  they  are  to 
serve  is  not  essential  to  their  true  reception  and 
operation.  Nor  does  the  human  soul,  with  all 
its  intelligent  capacity,  differ  materially  in  any 
respect  from  inanimate  life  in  this  regard.  It 
has  intrusted  to  its  keeping  and  exercise  enor- 
mous powers  and  splendid  truths  which  through 
ages  past  it  did  not  understand  and  which  to-day 
it  but  faintly  comprehends.  Light,  heat,  and 
electricity  have  with  subtle  influences  been  play- 
ing about  us  from  the  first,  and  yet  the  human 
understanding  is  but  beginning  to  resolve  them 
of  their  secrets.  The  spiritual  nature  of  man 
has  all  along  been  subject  to  the  influences  that 
cast  it  down  and  lift  it  up,  depress  it  with  fear 
and  inspire  it  with  hope,  yet  imperfect  still  is  the 
human  understanding  of  the  agency  which  pro- 
duces the  one  or  the  other.  I  desire  to  empha- 
size most  forcibly  that  the  understanding  of  the 


102  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY   OFFICES. 

truths  of  creation,  redemption,  sanctification,  of 
matter  and  spirit,  of  nature  and  grace,  are  not 
essential  to  their  existence;  more  than  this,  to 
affirm  that  the  understanding  of  the  wonderful 
works  of  God  is  reserved  to  remote  ages,  to  eter- 
nity, while  every  age  is  privileged  to  possess  and 
profit  by  that  work.  "  Brethren,  now  are  we 
the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be,  but  we  know  that  when  He  shall  ap- 
pear we  shall  be  like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Him 
as  He  is." 

Or,  to  take  another  aspect  of  this  great  sub- 
ject. Must  the  employment  of  the  human  soul 
as  an  agency  for  prophecy  or  inspiration  impair, 
efface,  or  entirely  destroy  the  natural  gifts  of 
the  agent  so  employed?  Or  to  put  it  more 
clearly,  are  we  to  question  the  truth  and  accu- 
racy of  God's  operation  in  the  kingdom  of  grace 
because  we  discover  that  the  agents  so  employed 
retain  without  impairment  the  other  gifts, 
which,  as  we  say,  by  nature  they  have  received? 
All  nature  revolts  against  such  an  inference. 
The  physical  nature  of  man  does  not  lose  its  pe- 
culiar characteristics  by  reason  of  the  solids, 
liquids,  and  gases  which  pass  through  its  various 
organs.  Matter  retains  its  distinctive  attributes 
although  the  vehicle  of  forces  fitted  to  operate 


HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY   OFFICES.  103 

through  its  agency.  The  air  we  breathe  is  not 
bereft  of  its  potency  though  a  convenient  me- 
dium of  sound.  Is  all  this  to  be  lost  upon  human 
intelligence  as  it  comes  to  the  study  of  God's 
kingdom  of  grace?  Must  prophecy  and  inspira- 
tion be  resolved  into  no  more  than  the  natural 
expression  of  the  natural  man  with  all  the  lim- 
itations which  the  existing  state  of  human 
knowledge  imposed  simply  because  the  natural 
man  still  continued  to  exhibit  the  evidence  that 
he  was  man  and  had  not  been  transformed  into 
God?  In  all  this  I  affirm  that  we  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  purpose  of  the  Incarnation, 
which  was  to  impart  to  man  that  which  by  nat- 
ure he  cannot  have.  That  it  did  impart  to  nat- 
ure that  which  by  nature  it  did  not  have  is  the 
basic  truth  of  Christian  hope,  Christian  faith, 
Christian  life.  Sweet,  simple,  beautiful  are  the 
songs  of  the  Nativity;  grand  do  they  become  in 
their  evidential  value  as  witnessing  to  the  power 
which  God  conveyed  to  humble  and  simple  souls 
to  interpret  mysteriously  the  history  of  the  past 
and  unfold  accurately  the  character  and  opera- 
tion of  that  marvellous  dispensation  then  ush- 
ered in  and  destined  to  exert  a  more  potent  in- 
fluence upon  human  souls  than  the  visible  works 
of  nature  and  the  powers  hidden  within  them, 


104  HYMNS   OF   THE   DAILY   OFFICES. 

types  and  figures  of  the  things  which  are  not 
seen  but  are  eternal. 

And  so  our  study  of  these  songs  of  the  Nativ- 
ity carries  us  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  are  not  mere  productions  of  the  natural 
man,  and  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
owe  their  being  to  their  contact  with  the  In- 
carnate life,  carries  us  to  the  further  thought 
that  the  power  which  inspired  their  production 
has  governed  their  use. 

That  the  touch  of  the  Incarnate  Life  operated 
to  the  production  of  songs  so  intensely  sublime, 
in  which  were  mingled  exquisitely  spiritual  in- 
terpretations of  events  past,  and  distinct  intima- 
tions of  future  aspects  of  Christ's  influence  on 
the  world,  suggests  at  once  the  further  purpose 
underlying  their  production  than  their  relation 
to  those  by  whom  they  were  uttered;  that  they 
were  preserved  to  posterity,  and  that  through 
the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  more  than  sug- 
gestive that  posterity  was  to  derive  a  benefit 
from  them  commensurate  with  the  care  be- 
stowed upon  their  production  and  preservation. 

Not  to  miss  the  full  significance  of  the  liturgi- 
cal use  of  these  songs  of  the  Nativity,  it  becomes 
us  to  mark  how  universal  has  been  their  employ- 
ment in  public  worship  in  all  branches  of  the 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY   OFFICES.  105 

Church  from  the  first  until  now.  To  that  end  we 
must  consider  carefully  what  the  Church  is,  and 
how  it  has  preserved  a  true  conception  of  public 
worship  from  age  to  age,  and  been  divinely 
guided  to  make  employment  of  such  provisions 
for  public  worship  as  to  preserve  all  the  essential 
elements  of  public  worship  as  acceptable  to  the 
mind  of  God. 

The  consciousness  that  the  Incarnate  Life  was 
designed  to  affect  and  benefit  all  life  to  remotest 
ages  prepares  us  to  follow  the  stages  by  which 
it  has  affected  human  life  and  imparted  to  it  its 
virtues.  Among  the  notable  results  of  the  Incar- 
nation is  the  direction  of  the  Church  into  a  true, 
healthful  order  of  public  worship,  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  same  through  all  the  mutations 
of  the  ages.  The  transition  is  not  difficult  from 
the  natural  body  of  Christ  to  the  mystical  body, 
the  Church,  and  the  Church  becomes  the  natural 
body  expanded  by  that  close  union  which  knits 
to  it  every  individual  incorporated  into  it  by  an 
ingrafting  so  actual  and  effectual  as  to  render 
it  a  participant  in  all  the  virtues,  powers,  capac- 
ities imparted  to  it  by  reason  of  the  Incarnation. 
It  has  been  beautifully  said  that  the  Sacraments 
are  the  expansion  of  the  Incarnation,  so  that 
through  them  the  Church  becomes  the  body  in 


106  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

which  Christ  dwells.  Christ's  sacraments  pro- 
duce their  effects  not  after  the  manner  of  a  holy 
charm  in  virtue  merely  of  His  promise  to  them, 
but  as  causes  by  reason  of  His  presence  in  them. 
It  has  been  well  observed  that  the  Church's  rites, 
even  of  her  most  ordinary  ones,  are  based  upon 
the  deepest  doctrinal  mysteries.  If  this  be  true, 
we  are  to  find  our  interpretation  of  the  Church's 
acts  in  the  solemn  mystery  of  Christ's  dwelling 
in  her,  and  as  closely  imparting  to  her  move- 
ments, as  to  His  natural  body,  the  impress  of 
His  will  and  holy  purpose.  The  acts  of  the 
Church  become  then  as  the  acts  of  Zacharias, 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  Simeon,  something  more 
than  the  expression  of  human  judgment  and 
taste,  the  channels  for  the  effectual  fulfilment  of 
the  mind  of  God.  The  Catholic  Church  then 
represents  something  more  than  the  continuity 
of  organization.  The  Catholic  Church  is  simply 
one  department  in  that  great  executive  realm 
in  which  God  is  King  and  divine  power  the  op- 
erating agent.  The  unchangeableness  of  God 
is  the  surety  for  the  unchangeableness  of  the 
kingdom  in  which  the  mind  and  power  of  God 
are  expressed  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  spirit 
world.  Just  here  we  are  brought  face  to  face 
with  two  aspects  of  Christ's  life,  and  if  of  Christ's 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  107 

life,  then  of  the  Church's  mission  as  affected  by- 
Christ's  indwelling  presence.  "  There  are,  as  it 
would  seem,  two  special  mysteries  of  the  Chris- 
tion  religion,  in  the  right  understanding  of  the 
one  or  the  other  of  which,  or  of  both  taken  to- 
gether, we  may  find  the  answer  to  most  ques- 
tions concerning  either  ritual  or  practice  which 
can  rise  under  that  dispensation.  These  are  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Priesthood  of  Christ.  In 
these  two  facts,  taking  both  of  them  in  their  wid- 
est sense,  is  summed  up  the  whole  of  our  Lord's 
operations  in  behalf  of  His  Church.  The  Priest- 
hood of  Christ,  though  most  closely  and  inti- 
mately connected  with  His  Incarnation,  yet 
seems  capable  of  being  discriminated  from  it  as 
a  second  and  distinct  step  in  His  great  work. 
The  Incarnation  was  in  order  to  the  Priesthood, 
but  did  not  properly  involve  it.  Christ's  Body 
was  prepared  Him  in  order  that,  like  all  other 
Priests,  He  might  have  somewhat  to  offer.  The 
action  of  His  Priesthood  supervened  upon  the 
proper  action  of  His  Incarnation.  What  He 
was  as  man  He  offered  as  Priest.  The  obedient 
sonship  was  sanctified  and  offered  in  the  office 
of  the  Eternal  Priesthood.,,  * 

*  Freeman's  Principles  of  Divine  Service,  Vol.  II. 


108  HYMNS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

It  seems  most  natural,  then,  to  find  these  two 
aspects  of  the  Incarnate  Life  passing  from  it  to 
the  Church,  His  body,  and  through  it  express- 
ing themselves  in  its  visible  life.  As  touch- 
ing human  life  with  which  it  came  in  contact, 
quickening,  reviving,  purifying,  hallowing,  and 
sanctifying  it,  but  carrying  it  on  and  presenting 
the  body  so  sanctified  as  an  acceptable  oblation 
to  God. 

Besides  the  restoration  of  man  to  the  image 
of  God,  the  divine  purpose  included  the  setting 
on  foot  of  certain  new  and  bettered  relations  to 
Himself  on  the  part  of  the  creature  so  restored. 
Now  all  this  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  public 
worship  as  one  of  the  main  purposes  of  the  In- 
carnation, to  be  reproduced  and  regulated  by 
the  indwelling  of  Christ;  the  bringing  of  man- 
kind from  its  dismembered  condition  into  a 
single  body,  the  bringing  of  that  body  into  the 
presence  of  God,  into  communion  and  fellowship 
with  God  subserviently  to  those  true  concep- 
tions of  God  which  alone  admit  of  man  entering 
His  presence  or  addressing  to  Him  prayer  or 
praise. 

As  thus  considered,  divine  worship  becomes 
something  far  different  from  an  imperfectly  de- 
fined impulse  of  emotion,  variable  with  the  taste 


HYMNS    OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  100, 

and  knowledge  of  the  offerer,  now  violently  ef- 
fusive, now  devoid  of  all  connection  with  the 
operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  now  character- 
ized by  the  vapid  utterances  of  an  excited  intel- 
lect. Divine  worship,  as  historically  considered, 
represents  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
drawing  man  into  God's  presence  under  the  con- 
scious influence  of  all  the  conditions  under  which 
entrance  into  God's  presence  may  with  safety 
and  benefit  be  made.  The  Church  therefore  pre- 
sents to  us  throughout  her  history  not  merely 
a  divine  agency  exercising  her  powers  manward, 
teaching,  reproving,  rebuking,  admonishing,  and 
feeding,  but  in  the  same  holy  influence  approach- 
ing God  with  a  glorified  service,  in  which  are 
mingled  purifyings,  penitences,  praises,  thanks- 
givings, rejoicings,  and  blessings;  and  through 
all  her  history  the  Church  seems  to  have  been 
divinely  guided  to  find  her  material  for  public 
worship  in  the  vehicles  divinely  provided  for  that 
end. 

These  vehicles  have  kept  clearly  in  view  all 
along  that  sin  and  self-will  effectually  and  for- 
ever exclude  from  God's  presence,  and  that  ad- 
mission to  Him  rests  solely  upon  regeneration, 
restoration  to  His  image,  conformity  to  His  will. 
The  efficacious  instruments  of  His  mercy  then 


IIO  HYMNS   OF  THE   DAILY   OFFICES. 

become  the  objects  of  solicitude  and  the  themes 
of  praise.  The  value  of  all  this  can  only  be  real- 
ized when  we  justly  compare  the  results  of  pub- 
lic worship  under  its  historic  guidance  and  the 
state  to  which  it  has  been  reduced  by  human 
direction  independent  of  the  impulse  of  the  In- 
carnate Life.  In  this  connection  I  am  con- 
strained to  quote  at  some  length  the  words  em- 
ployed by  Hallam  in  his  first  lecture  on  Morning 
Prayer.  On  the  one  hand,  he  says,  all  features 
of  public  worship  unite  to  exhibit  a  particular 
aspect  of  God  and  a  particular  aspect  of  man, 
and  this  aspect  may  be  called  the  evangelical 
as  contradistinguished  from  the  rationalistic  on 
the  one  hand  and  from  the  enthusiastic  on  the 
other.  It  exhibits  God  as  a  holy  being  and  an 
upright  ruler,  hating  sin  and  punishing  trans- 
gressors, yet  extending  favor  to  contrite  offend- 
ers through  a  system  of  mercy  which  at  once  vin- 
dicates His  holiness  and  rectitude  and  confers 
pardon  and  acceptance  on  all  those  who  confess 
their  sins  and  forsake  them.  It  exhibits  man  as 
sinful  and  guilty,  condemned  by  the  law  of  God 
and  justly  subject  to  His  displeasure,  but  encour- 
aged by  the  promises  and  offers  of  God's  love  to 
hope  and  seek  for  forgiveness  and  restoration, 
in  the  exercise  of  a  hearty  repentance  and  true 


HYMXS   OF   THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  Ill 

faith.  It  proclaims  this  the  worship  of  a  holy, 
just,  but  merciful  and  forgiving  God  by  humble 
and  penitent  sinners.  Let  no  self-righteous 
Pharisee,  whether  he  be  a  proud  votary  of  rea- 
son or  a  bold,  presumptuous  enthusiast  enter 
here.  It  distinctly  defines  the  position  of  our 
worship,  placing  it  between  the  desert,  frozen 
with  perpetual  frost  of  that  school  which  calls 
itself  rational,  and  that  other  desert,  parched 
with  irregular  and  wasting  fires  of  heated  and 
disorderly  enthusiasm,  which  border  it  on  either 
side,  and  fencing  it  from  both  with  precision  and 
security.  On  the  one  side  we  see  a  worship  that 
is  essentially  rationalistic,  out  of  which  all  that 
is  truly  characteristic  and  distinctive  of  the  real 
Gospel  of  Christ  has  been  stealthily  withdrawn, 
leaving  but  the  empty  shell  or  carcass,  without 
the  substance  or  the  life.  This  is  the  very  soil 
out  of  which  grow  what  may  be  called  fancy 
prayers,  eloquent  and  poetic  apostrophes  and 
appeals  to  the  great,  all-pervading,  all-doing 
Spirit  Unseen.  Nature  becomes  one  great  in- 
exhaustible magazine  to  finish  out  the  wardrobe 
of  this  sentimental  worship.  In  the  hands  of  an 
intelligent  and  refined  operator  prayer  may  be 
wrought  up  in  this  way  into  a  very  charming 
performance,    as    an    artistic    production    very 


112  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

beautiful,  very  touching-,  very  agreeable  and  en- 
gaging, while  in  the  hands  of  the  less  gifted  and 
skilful  it  descends  into  a  piece  of  mawkish  and 
vapid  sentimentality.  But  in  the  one  variety 
and  the  other  alike,  to  the  soul  that  hungers  and 
thirsts  after  righteousness  it  is  utterly  empty 
and  unsatisfying.  Such  talk  to  an  earnest  soul 
is  a  mere  mockery  and  disappointment.  You 
could  as  soon  satisfy  a  craving  appetite  with 
wind,  or  fatten  a  hungry  man  with  ashes.  The 
poetry  of  devotion  is  not  a  thing  on  which  the 
human  soul  can  live.  Coming  with  the  burdens 
of  real  wants  to  a  real  God,  it  craves  the  lan- 
guage of  reality,  it  seeks  directness  and  concise- 
ness. The  true  beauty  of  prayer  is  the  beauty  of 
fitness  and  propriety,  the  true  eloquence  of 
prayer  the  apt  and  weighty  words  wrung  out' 
by  the  urgency  of  need  and  desire.  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  prisoner  pleading  for  his  life  with  the 
flowers  of  rhetoric?  Save,  Lord,  or  I  perish — 
that  is  prayer,  eloquent,  beautiful  prayer.  But 
rationalism  employs  the  treasures  of  science  and 
the  moving  panorama  of  human  life  to  furnish 
out  pictures  of  which  it  cannot  be  slanderous  to 
say  they  are  addressed  to  the  fancies  and  sensi- 
bilities of  men  and  not  to  the  great  and  fatherly 
heart  of  the  glorious  God.     On  the  other  hand, 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES,  113 

and  scarcely  less  to  be  avoided,  is  what  I  have 
called  a  worship  of  enthusiasm,  in  which  the 
true  relations  of  God  and  man  are  in  a  different 
way,  but  hardly  less  fatally,  misrepresented  and 
obscured.  This  is  the  region  of  fervid  confi- 
dence, in  which  God  and  man  are  placed  in  re- 
lations to  each  other  essentially  just;  but  the 
one  is  lowered  from  the  lofty  place  He  rightly 
fills,  and  the  other  elevated  equally  above  his 
true  position.  All  this  arises  from  the  admixture 
of  animal  excitement  and  sensibility  with  the 
true  operation  of  saving  grace;  and  this  is  the 
legitimate  result  of  popular  notions  of  its  nature 
and  the  methods  of  seeking  and  cherishing  its 
influences.  The  result  is  a  sensuous  religion, 
not  fed,  as  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  by  crucifixes 
and  images  and  pictures,  and  expending  itself 
in  telling  beads  and  genuflections,  but  living 
just  as  sensuously  in  noise  and  vehemence  and 
boisterousness,  in  familiarity  and  colloquialism 
of  speech,  on  the  whole,  in  such  a  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  wide  and  awful  distance  between  the 
forgiven  sinner  and  the  holy  God,  and  of  the 
vast  work  yet  to  be  done  in  the  renewed  heart 
before  it  reaches  any  near  approximation  to  the 
true  standard  of  holiness  as  is  fatal  to  all  true  rev- 
erence and  all  really  devout  and  solemn  worship. 
8 


114  &YMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

The  adoption  of  sons  under  this  delusion  is  vindi- 
cated in  freedoms  which  a  well-nurtured  earthly 
sonship  would  scruple  to  use;  and  love  finds  vent 
in  terms  of  endearment  replete  with  the  luscious- 
ness  of  an  ill-trained  physical  affection.  And 
thus  the  height  of  spirituality  is  thought  to  be 
attained  in  a  sort  of  religious  intoxication,  under 
which  the  soul  revels  in  an  utter  abandonment 
of  restraint  and  sobriety.  Where  such  notions 
of  religion  prevail,  worship  becomes  either  a 
straining  after  this  exalted  state  of  feeling,  or  an 
indulgence  of  it  in  the  free  outpouring  of  ex- 
travagence  and  excitement,  or  the  assumed  ap- 
pearance of  it,  as  essential  to  an  authentic  and 
acceptable  exercise  of  devotion. 

But  the  worship  which  the  mind  of  God  has 
fashioned  for  the  healthful  service  of  man  is  tem- 
perate in  all  things.  The  confidence  of  a  certain 
faith,  the  comfort  of  a  reasonable,  religious,  and 
holy  hope  it  has,  but  it  has  no  confidence  in  the 
virtues  of  nature  nor  in  the  transports  of  grace. 
It  is  calm,  serene,  still,  distrustful  of  itself  and  of 
the  world,  keeping  its  way  through  life  in  Godly 
quietness,  leaning  only  on  the  hope  of  God's 
heavenly  grace  and  looking  for  the  mercy  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  unto  eternal  life. 

It  is  not  a  fact  to  be  lightly  regarded  that  the 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  I  I  5 

Church  has  universally  and  with  a  unanimity 
that  is  deeply  impressive  refrained  from  what  is 
called  extemporary  and  humanly  devised  forms 
of  worship,  but  has  as  uniformly  made  use  of  the 
inspired  writings  for  her  acts  of  worship,  whether 
jubilant  or  mournful,  penitential  or  Eucharistic. 
There  is  a  touch  of  deep  solemnity  in  the  earnest- 
ness with  which  both  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
Churches  have  made  use  of  the  songs  of  Moses, 
of  Hannah,  Habbakuk,  and  Hezekiah,  and  the 
Psalms  for  all  their  devotions,  only  imparting 
to  them  a  spiritual  significance,  as  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  resurrection  they  sing  the  song  of 
Moses  at  the  Red  Sea.  We  are  now  prepared 
to  understand  what  without  it  would  be  most 
mysterious,  the  uniformity  with  which  the 
Church  has  from  the  beginning  made  use  of 
the  Benedictus,  the  Magnificat,  and  the  Nunc 
Dimittis  in  her  public  offices.  I  need  not  dwell 
here  upon  the  spread  of  the  Church  throughout 
the  world,  one,  and  yet  appearing  as  national 
churches  with  varying  offices  of  public  worship, 
nor  rehearse  how  the  early  ordinary  offices  ar- 
ranged themselves  as  Nocturns,  Lauds,  Matins, 
Prime,  Terce,  Sext,  Nones,  Vespers,  and  Com- 
pline. What  I  desire  most  is  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  all,  as  by  a  common  consent,  as  moved 


Il6  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

by  a  single  impulse,  made  use  of  these  three 
songs  of  the  Nativity  as  expressing  the  con- 
scious reception  of  the  benefits  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, and  as  expressing  the  joy  incident  thereto 
in  language  the  most  fitting  as  itself  framed  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  Himself.  And  thus,  as  by  a  true 
spirit  of  interpretation,  the  Benedictus  came  to 
connect  itself  with  Lauds,  the  Magnificat  with 
Vespers,  and  the  Nunc  Dimittis  with  Compline. 
In  that  later  revision  of  the  orifices  of  the  Church 
whereby  these  were  gathered  into  two  offices, 
one  for  Matins,  the  other  for  Vespers,  and  lec- 
tions were  introduced,  that  there  might  be 
knowledge  and  apprehension  of  Him  by  the  un- 
derstanding, the  will,  and  the  affections,  these 
venerable  canticles,  preserved  and  transmitted 
to  posterity,  serve,  as  they  should,  as  the  respon- 
sories  to  the  teachings  which  bring  to  the  soul 
the  Incarnation,  with  all  its  benefits  and  bless- 
ings, through  the  lessons  of  Holy  Scripture.  It 
is  ever  thus  that  the  two  aspects  of  the  Christ 
Life,  the  Incarnation  and  the  Priesthood,  work 
their  benefits  upon  human  souls,  and  by  the 
same  instruments  first  preparing  us,  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  for  presentation  to  God,  and  then  en- 
abling us  to  present  ourselves  acceptably  to 
1 1  i 1 11.    But  if  it  be  objected  that  this  is  artificially 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  WJ 

done,  let  us  grant  that  it  is  so;  but  it  is  divine 
art.  In  her  offices  of  public  worship  the  Church 
has  ever  made  use  of  all  the  resources  at  her 
command  to  awaken  in  man's  inner  self  a  just 
sense  of  his  relation  to  God,  a  painful  sense  of 
the  enormity  of  sin,  and  the  equally  appalling 
thought  of  the  divine  remedy  for  it.  By  all  the 
devices  known  to  her,  by  all  the  treasures  pro- 
vided for  her  of  God,  the  Church  seeks  to  bring 
mankind  into  a  genuine  state  of  pain,  sorrow, 
remorse,  tears,  weeping,  mourning,  which  shall 
issue  in  renunciation  of  evil,  in  the  acceptance 
of  Christ  as  Saviour,  Master,  King,  and  to  the 
expression  in  fitting  terms  to  God  of  the  trans- 
formation thus  wrought  within  it  by  the  Incar- 
nate Life  conveyed  to  it.  But  because  all  this 
is  artificial  is  it  unprofitable?  All  art  is  but  the 
application  of  divinely  appointed  means  to  di- 
vinely intended  ends.  Tired  with  the  work  of 
life,  we  realize  our  need  of  pleasure.  Are  not 
all  our  devices  for  rousing  the  weary,  depressed 
soul,  and  imparting  to  it  the  invigorating  joy- 
ousness  that  makes  labor  light,  artificial?  Or,  to 
take  another  illustration,  is  not  the  State  most 
assiduous  in  her  care  to  cultivate  patriotism, 
making  use  of  art,  literature,  eloquence,  and 
every  fitting  occasion  or  historical  anniversary 


I  1 8  HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES. 

for  bringing  this  into  her  service?  Shall  the 
children  of  this  world  be  wiser  in  their  genera- 
tion than  the  children  of  light?  The  Church's 
holy  seasons  are  artificially  observed.  Her  de- 
vices are  of  Christ's  planning.  She  is  charged  to 
diligence  and  constancy  in  their  use  for  the  very 
reason  that  daily  contact  with  the  wrorld  tends 
to  destroy  that  very  state  of  the  soul  which  is 
essentially  necessary  to  the  cultivation  and  pres- 
ervation of  holiness  in  all  its  parts.  Artificially 
the  Church  seeks  to  counteract  this  effect  pro- 
duced upon  mind  and  soul  by  the  world  and  the 
world's  work,  but  it  is  divine  art. 

"  May  we  not  reverently  express  the  hope  that 
the  day  is  far  distant  when  the  Church  shall  ex- 
change this  venerable  order  of  public  worship 
with  all  the  venerated  associations  connected 
with  it  for  the  poverty  of  improvised  and  emo- 
tional individualism  or  the  solitary  isolation  of 
the  daily  Mass? 

"  In  our  country  alone,  in  one  form  alone,  does 
the  western,  the  ancient  western,  office  survive 
— psalmody,  scripture,  responsive  canticles, 
preces,  collects,  the  medium  of  Europe's  ancient 
worship,  banished  from  all  other  lands,  have 
taken  refuge  in  the  Churches  of  the  English 
Communion.  The  Enerlish  Church  is  in  this  mat- 


HYMNS   OF  THE  DAILY  OFFICES.  1 1 9 

ter  the  heir  of  the  world.  She  may  have  dimin- 
ished her  inheritance,  but  all  other  western 
churches  have  thrown  it  away.  The  question  is 
between  these  ordinary  offices  or  none."  *  God 
grant  her  grace  to  sacredly  preserve  them,  dili- 
gently use  them,  and  devoutly  love  them,  to 
His  glory  and  her  profit.    Amen. 

*  Freeman's  Principles  of  Divine  Service,  Vol.  II. 


Gbe  Ib^mns  of  tbe  ©roinal. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE  RT.  REV.  HENRY  C.  POTTER,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  D.C.L., 

Bishop  of  New  York. 

THE  HYMNS  OF  THE  ORDINAL. 

As  human  society  passes  out  of  its  more  prim- 
itive into  its  more  complex  forms,  it  illustrates, 
whatever  may  be  its  lesser  diversities,  two  gen- 
eral modes  or  forms  of  expression  which  are  in- 
dicative of  two  enduring  tendencies  in  human 
nature.  One  of  these  is  in  the  direction  of  in- 
dividual freedom,  and  finds  its  manifestation 
in  those  matters  of  personal  conduct  which  can- 
not be  said  to  follow  any  fixed  law.  A  despotism 
may  erect,  above  the  people  that  it  rules,  a  vast 
and  intricate  mechanism  of  precept  and  prohibi- 
tion; but  the  individual  will  somehow  find,  even 
within  the  narrow  restrictions  of  its  most  rig- 
orous limitations — as  the  handcuffed  prisoner 
still  moves  his  fingers  and  signals  thus,  it  may  be, 
to  his  fellow-prisoner — some  mode  of  action  and 
of  expression.    At  the  basis  of  human  conscious- 


124  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

ness  lies  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  and, 
with  it,  all  the  impatience  of  the  manifold  forms 
of  bondage  to  law,  and  limitation  of  individual 
action,  for  which  that  instinct  stands. 

And,  over  against  that  universal  instinct  there 
is  disclosed,  just  as  widely,  precisely  as  society 
advances  out  of  its  simpler  forms  into  those  that 
are  higher  and  more  complex,  another  tendency 
or  movement,  and  one  ultimately  more  domi- 
nant, and  this  is  the  tendency  to  limit  and  qual- 
ify individual  liberty  and  impulse  by  prescribed 
form  and  precept.  Indeed,  this  development 
may  be  said  to  mark  what  may  be  called  the  sec- 
ondary as  distinguished  from  the  primary  period 
in  all  human  association.  By  this  road  civiliza- 
tion comes.  Under  the  operation  of  this  ten- 
dency the  pastoral  state  and  community  give 
place  to  one  which  limits  the  nomadic  impulse, 
which  fences  round  the  individual  life  with  rules 
and  restraints;  and  which,  developing  in  time 
what  we  call  government  develops  with  it  those 
fixed  forms,  rules,  ceremonials,  oaths,  symbols, 
official  personages,  and  the  rest,  by  means  of 
which  government  is  maintained  and  perpet- 
uated. 

All  this,  I  say,  is  true  of  human  society;  and, 
if  these  brief  moments  allowed,  it  would  be  a 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL.  125 

very  interesting  process  to  trace  those  memo- 
rable and  often  picturesque  steps  by  which  it  has 
come  to  pass.  But  I  have  brought  you  thus  far 
by  lines  that  may  seem  to  you,  so  far  as  the  sub- 
ject set  for  this  occasion  is  concerned,  equally 
remote  and  obscure,  simply  that  you  may  recog- 
nize that  that  which  is  true  of  human  society  is 
no  less  true  of  that  other  society  not  merely 
human  but  divine,  which  we  call  the  Church  of 
God.  I  am  to  speak  to  you  of  the  Hymns  of  the 
Ordinal;  I  cannot,  however,  well  do  so  without 
saying  something,  first  of  all,  of  the  Ordinal  it- 
self. What  is  the  Ordinal?  How  did  it  come  to 
be?  What  relation  have  the  other  parts  of  it  to 
those  hymns  of  which  we  are  to  speak  ?  We  go 
back  to  the  first  pages  in  the  story  of  the  genesis 
of  the  Church  and  they  tell  us,  some  one  may 
say,  nothing  of  an  Ordinal.  The  Divine  Found- 
er of  the  Christian  Fellowship  calls  some  twelve 
men  or  some  seventy  men,  as  the  case  may  be, 
around  Him  and  gives  them  their  commission 
to  teach,  to  preach,  to  baptize.  He  appears  to 
them  after  His  Resurrection,  and  breathes  upon 
them,  saying,  "  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
whose  sins  ye  remit  they  are  remitted  unto  them ; 
and  whose  sins  ye  retain  they  are  retained."  Or 
again,  the  Apostles  come  together  when  there 


126  THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL, 

is  a  vacancy  in  their  original  number,  and  pray, 
saying,  "  Thou,  Lord,  which  knowest  the  hearts 
of  all  men,  show  whether  of  these  two  (Joseph 
called  Barsabas,  or  Matthias)  thou  hast  chosen."* 
Or  yet  again,  "  The  twelve  called  the  multitude 
of  the  disciples  together  and  said,  Look  ye  out 
from  among  you  seven  men  of  honest  report, 
full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  wisdom,  whom  we 
may  appoint"  as  helpers  in  the  work  of  the 
Church;  and  when,  in  obedience  to  this  com- 
mand, Stephen  and  the  rest  are  chosen;  then  we 
read  that  these  were  "  set  before  the  Apostles, 
and  when  they  had  prayed,  they  laid  their  hands 
on  them."  f  Or,  still  again  we  read,  "  The  Holy 
Ghost  said,  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for 
the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them.  And 
when  they  had  fasted  and  prayed,  and  laid  their 
hands  on  them,  they  sent  them  away.  %  This,  I 
say,  we  find  in  that  volume  which  is  the  story 
of  the  beginnings  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
as  we  do  so  we  say  i  How  simple  it  all  is;  how 
informal,  how  natural  and  instinctive!'  Yes, 
doubtless,  as  was  the  whole  of  the  life  of  the 
Church  in  those  primitive  and  formative  days  of 
which  these  events  were  a  part.     But  we  look 

*  Acts  i.  15  et  seq.  \  Acts  vi.  1-7.  \  Acts  xiii.  2,  3. 


THE  HYMNS  OF  THE    ORDINAL,  \2*J 

again,  and  then  as  we  turn,  for  example,  to  those 
Offices  which  give  to  our  Ordinal  of  to-day  its 
distinctive  name,  I  mean  the  Offices  for  the 
Ordering  of  Deacons  and  Priests,  and  for  the 
Ordaining  and  Consecrating  of  Bishops,  we  see 
how  close,  after  all,  through  all  the  changing 
centuries,  to  those  primitive  and  scriptural 
models  which  I  have  quoted,  these  later  Offices 
have  clung. 

Through  all  the  changing  centuries,  I  say. 
What  was  it,  now,  which  it  might  obviously 
and  reasonably  be  expected  that  these  should 
bring  to  pass?  First  of  all,  it  was  to  be  expected 
that,  with  the  growth  of  the  Church,  those  of- 
fices by  which  men  were  set  apart  for  any  sacred 
function  should  take  on  such  features  as  that 
growth  itself  compelled.  The  challenge  to  the 
people  concerning  the  fitness  of  one  about  to  be 
ordained  would  be  unnecessary  in  a  small  and 
intimate  fellowship.  But,  with  greater  numbers 
come  greater  perils  from  unfitness,  unworthi- 
ness,unreflectingness;  and  so  there  maybe  traced 
in  what  may  be  called  the  evolution  of  the  Of- 
fices of  Ordination  a  marked  development  in 
those  features  which  emphasize  the  due  guards 
and  requirements  which  are  designed  as  guar- 
antees of  character,  competency,  and  fitness. 


128  THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDIXAL. 

Again:  in  the  progress  of  the  life  of  the  Church 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  National  Churches 
should  develop  in  connection  with  all  the  of- 
fices of  the  common  religion,  such  diversities  as 
would  be  characteristic  and  distinctive  of  na- 
tional traditions  and  peculiarities,  oriental  and 
occidental,  highly  civilized  or  less  civilized,  as  in 
fact  they  did — as  might  be  shown,  did  these 
limits  permit  it,  in  connection,  e.g.,  with  the  par- 
ticular matter  of  the  transmission  of  authority, 
as  illustrated  in  the  form  of  Ordination  or  Con- 
secration. In  the  Alexandrian  and  Abyssinian 
Churches,  e.g.,  as  the  author  of  "  Christian  In- 
stitutes "  has  shown,*  this  "  was  and  still  is  by 
breathing;  in  the  Eastern  Church,  generally  by 
lifting  up  the  hands  in  the  ancient  oriental  at- 
titude of  benediction;  in  the  Armenian  Church, 
as  also  at  times  in  the  Alexandrian,  by  the  dead 
hand  of  the  predecessor;  in  the  early  Celtic 
Church  by  the  transmission  of  relics  or  the  pas- 
toral staff;  in  the  Latin  Cfinrch  by  the  laving  on 
of  hands;  to  which  may  be  added  an  oriental 
usage  traceable  to  the  time  of  the  "  Apostolic 
Constitutions"  which  required  that  an  open  copy 
of  the  Gospels  should  be  laid  upon  the  head  or 
neck  of  the  person  to  be  ordained. 

*  Stanley's  Christian  Institutes,  p.  212.      Scribner's  Ed. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 29 

But  all  these  diversities  touched  minor  and 
insignificant  things;  and  nothing  is  more  im- 
pressive in  a  review  of  these  forms  by  which,  from 
earlier  ages,  the  authority  of  Orders  has  been 
handed  down,  than  the  fact  that  there  is  to  be 
found  in  all  of  them,  as  their  central  and  supreme 
characteristic,  the  invocation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
In  the  Office  for  the  Ordination  of  Deacons,  as 
set  forth  in  our  own  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
and  as  obtaining  in  the  Anglican  Communion 
throughout  the  world,  there  is  indeed,  in  the 
actual  formula  accompanying  the  laying  on  of 
hands  nothing  that  answers  to  the  elder  formula 
of  the  Salisbury  Use  which  enjoins  the  words 
"  Accipe  Spiritum  Sanctum;  "  but  there  is  a  spe- 
cial petition  in  the  Litany  which  reads  "  That  it 
may  please  thee  to  bless  these  thy  servants  now 
to  be  admitted  to  the  Order  of  Deacons  and  to 
pour  thy  grace  upon  them,"  and  it  may  also  be 
mentioned  that  the  Pontifical  of  Salisbury,  to 
which  I  have  referred,  was  substantially  identical, 
in  its  ordaining  formula,  with  that  of  Bangor  and 
other  later  Latin  uses,  as  it  was  with  that  of  very 
early  Eastern  usage  still  obtaining  in  the  Greek 
Church.*     And  what  is  even  more  beautifully 

*  Morin,  de  Sacr.  Ordin.     Part  I.,  p.  79,  D. 
9 


130  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE    ORDINAL. 

significant  is  the  fact  that,  in  the  Sacramentary 
of  Gregory  the  Bishop,  in  the  kk  Benedictio  Dia- 
coni,"  commends  those  who  are  to  be  ordained 
to  the  prayers  of  the  people  substantially  in  these 
words:  "  Let  us,  Beloved  Brethren,  pray  the 
Omnipotent  Father  that  upon  these  who  are 
accounted  worthy  to  assume  the  office  of  a 
Deacon  He  will  mercifully  pour  down  (or  shed 
down,  cffundat)  the  grace  of  His  benediction." 
The  truth  which  underlies  all  this  is  a  funda- 
mental one;  and  it  is  because  so  impressively 
they  emphasize  it  that  the  Hymns,  or  Hymn,  in 
the  Ordinal  (for,  in  fact,  apart  from  the  Euchar- 
istic  Hymns,  which  are  a  part  of  that  office,  and 
which,  as  such,  are  necessarily  used  in  connec- 
tion with  an  Ordination,  since,  according  to  the 
rubrical  law  of  the  Church,  there  can  be  no 
Ordination  without  a  celebration  of  the  Holy 
Communion,  there  is,  as  we  shall  presently 
see,  but  one  Hymn) — it  is,  I  say,  because  the 
Hymn  in  the  Office  for  the  Ordination  of  Priests 
or  the  Consecration  of  Bishops  so  impressively 
emphasizes  that  which  is  central  to  the  office, 
that  it  stands  just  where  it  is.  That  without 
which  the  Service  of  Ordination  would  have  no 
other  than  a  merely  secular  meaning  is  its  invo- 
cation of  the  Sevenfold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE    ORDINAL.  13 1 

The  presentation  by  the  Archdeacon  or  his  rep- 
resentative, the  challenge  to  the  people,  the  pe- 
tition of  the  Litany,  the  examination  and  pledges 
of  the  candidate,  all  these  have  their  proper 
place  in  such  an  office,  most  of  all,  as  leading  up 
to  that  of  which  they  are  the  portal.  But  that 
which  most  truly  confers  the  grace  of  Orders 
is  the  sevenfold  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  There 
are  ceremonials  in  connection  with  Ordination 
which,  since  the  Reformation  settlement,  have 
disappeared  out  of  it,  and  some  may  think,  per- 
haps, that  those  offices  have  lost  not  a  little  by 
their  elimination.  The  question  is  not  one  which 
I  shall  attempt  to  discuss  here,  though  I  am 
quite  free  to  say  that  if  the  true  ideal  in  the 
Church's  offices  be,  as  a  great  authority  in  our 
mother  Church  has  declared,  "  a  certain  stately 
simplicity,"  *  those  offices  must  be  owned  to 
have  gained  immensely  by  the  disappearance 
of  features  often  puerile,  and  oftener  still  fan- 
tastic. But  be  that  as  it  may,  the  matter  of 
supreme  congratulation  with  us  may  well  be 
that  no  changes  have  touched  that  which  is  cen- 
tral in  the  Office;  the  prayer  for  the  gifts  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  the  solemn  invocation  of  those 

*  Mr.  Beresford  Hope. 


132  THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

gifts,  accompanied  by  the  laying  on  of  hands. 
We  go  back  to  those  Ordinals  used  in  England 
in  the  fifth  century  and  we  find  indisputable  evi- 
dence of  this  essential  fact.  We  trace  the  stream 
of  testimony  down  through  the  Sacramentaries 
of  St.  Leo,  Gelasius,  Gregory,  the  Liturgia  Alc- 
mannica  (which  belongs  to  the  ninth  century), 
the  Gallican  Liturgy,  the  Pontifical  of  Egbert, 
and  so  on,  until  we  come  to  the  well-defined 
Use  of  Salisbury,  and  the  token  of  this  consist- 
ent and  dominant  tradition  is  everywhere  to  be 
found.  With  the  dawn  of  the  English  Reforma- 
tion there  came,  of  course,  extensive  changes, 
the  first  and  most  necessary  of  which  was  the 
casting  out  of  the  corrupt  oath  of  obedience  to 
the  Bishop  of  Rome;  and  then,  consistently  with 
this,  the  elimination  of  those  features  to  which  I 
have  already  referred,  no  one  of  which  had  any 
slightest  Scriptural  or  primitive  warrant,  and 
none  of  which  was  older  than  the  eighth  or  ninth 
Century,  eras  in  the  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church  marked  by  gross  ignorance  and  wide- 
spread superstition.  These  changes  were  made 
by  a  commission  of  Bishops  and  others  appointed 
for  that  purpose,  and  the  result  of  their  labors  we 
have  to-day  in  the  Forms,  or  Offices,  contained 
in  our  own  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 33 

Their  general  outlines  I  have  already  indi- 
cated, and  it  now  remains  to  me  to  turn  to  that 
particular  feature  in  them  of  which  to-day  I  have 
been  bidden  to  speak.  In  the  Office  for  the  Or- 
daining of  a  Priest  and  in  that  for  Ordaining  and 
Consecrating  a  Bishop  there  is  introduced,  im- 
mediately before  the  brief  prayer  which  precedes 
the  laying  on  of  hands,  a  Hymn  which,  in  the 
Ordinal,  still  bears  the  title  that  in  that  ancient 
tongue  in  which  it  was  written  was  originally 
given  to  it,  of  "  Veni  Creator  Spiritus." 

No  more  interesting  page  can  be  found  in 
Christian  history  than  that  on  which  the  story 
of  this  Hymn  is  written.  Indeed,  if  one  were  to 
trace  it  to  its  ultimate  source  it  would  demand 
not  a  page,  but  a  volume.  One  takes  up  this 
single  slender  thread  and  straightway  becomes 
conscious  that  its  farther  end  lies  not  merely 
among  the  beginnings  of  Christianity  itself,  but 
beyond  them.  The  place  of  the  Hymn,  in  other 
words,  in  Christian  worship,  how  it  came  there, 
what  were  the  influences  that  bred  and  modified, 
what  were  the  motives  that  craved  and  used  it, 
these  are  undoubtedly  inquiries  that  lie  about  the 
foundations  of  Christian  Society  in  its  earliest 
days  and  its  most  primitive  forms.  As  the  new 
Religion  emerged  out  of  the  darkness  of  that 


134  THE   HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL. 

elder  paganism  which  had  preceded  it,  it  could 
not,  for  instance,  forget  that  that  Paganism  had 
its  own  cult,  its  own  worship,  its  own  liturgical 
rites.  The  Greek  convert,  as  he  lingered  near 
the  Areopagus,  heard  the  strains  in  which  He- 
siod  sang  to  Zeus,  or  hymned  "  the  glories  of 
men  of  old  and  the  gods  of  Olympus!  "  and  when 
St.  Paul,  preaching  on  Mars  Hill,  used  the  words 
"  as  certain  of  your  own  poets  have  said,  '  for  we 
are  His  offspring,'  "  *  the  men  to  whom  he  spoke 
recognized,  as  we  should  do  if  one  were  to  quote  a 
line  from  Wordsworth,  that  line  in  Aratus  which 
he  in  turn  had  borrowed  from  his  greater  prede- 
cessor Cleanthes.  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you, 
now,  to  think  of  the  spell  which  such  hymns 
must  have  exercised,  or  those  others  of  Anac- 
reon,  of  Catullus,  and  of  Horace  which  Roman 
soldiers,  or  scholars,  or  plebeians  who  had  turned 
to  Christ  had  heard  long  before  in  some  imperial 
temple  or  sanctuary?  These  were  the  things 
that  touched  the  heart,  and  stirred  the  blood, 
and  moved  the  deepest  emotions.  And  so,  with 
a  very  real  wisdom,  the  Church  in  her  first  days 
called  into  her  service  the  Christian  Hymn,  and 
in  his  letters  to  the  Churches  in  Ephesus  and  in 

*  Acts  xvii.  28. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE    ORDINAL.  1 35 

Colosse,  where  St.  Paul  enjoins  those  to  whom 
he  writes  to  speak  or  to  admonish  (remind, 
rather)  one  another  "  in  psalms  and  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs,"  we  find  the  beginnings  of  that 
universal  custom  which  was  soon  to  spread 
throughout  the  Christian  world.  "  The  dis- 
ciples," the  author  of  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  tells  us,  "  were  called  Christians 
first  at  Antioch;  "  *  and  a  very  ancient  and 
beautiful  tradition,  preserved  by  the  historian 
Socrates,  maintains  that  Ignatius,  who  suffered 
martyrdom  A.  D.  107,  and  who  must  therefore 
have  been  very  close  to,  if  not  contemporary 
with  the  Apostle  St.  John,  was  led  by  a  vision 
or  dream  of  Angels,  singing  hymns  antiphonally 
to  the  Holy  Trinity,  to  introduce  the  antiphonal 
singing  of  hymns  into  the  Church  at  Antioch, 
from  which  it  spread  quickly  to  other  churches. 
How  widely  the  custom  spread  and  how  deeply 
it  became  rooted  is  indicated  in  a  somewhat  curi- 
ous way  by  the  fact  that  the  council  of  the  Syrian 
Church,  which  two  centuries  later  deposed  Paul 
of  Samosata  from  that  same  see  of  Antioch,  did 
so,  among  other  reasons,  because  he  had  pro- 
hibited the  use  of  hymns  to  Christ  written  by 

*  Acts  xi.  26. 


I36  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

uninspired  writers.  Indeed,  the  time  was  not 
long  in  coming  when,  in  the  Eastern  Church, 
the  singing  of  hymns  came  to  have  a  very  dis- 
tinct polemic  significance,  and  there  is  no  more 
dramatic  page  in  the  somewhat  turbulent  his- 
tory of  the  Arian  Controversy  than  that  which 
tells  how  the  disciples  of  Alius,  when  St.  John 
Chrysostom  was  raised  to  the  Metropolitan  See 
of  Constantinople,  were  wont,  having  no  places 
of  worship  within  the  walls  of  the  city,  to  come 
into  it  on  Saturdays,  Sundays,  and  the  greater 
festivals,  and,  assembling  in  places  of  public  re- 
sort, sing  songs  ridiculing  the  orthodox  faith 
and  extolling  their  own.  It  was  because  Chrys- 
ostom apprehended  that  this  heterodox  hymn- 
singing  might  mislead  and  pervert  the  simple- 
minded  among  his  flock,  that,  with  the  help 
of  Eudoxia,  Empress  of  Arcadius,  he  organized 
a  system  of  nightly  processional  hymn-singing, 
with  silver  crosses,  wax  candles,  and  other  feat- 
ures of  ceremonial  pomp;  out  of  which  grew  the 
singing  of  hymns  in  connection  with  certain  so- 
lemnities at  night,  which  became  before  long  an 
established  institution.  How  vast  it  grew  to  be 
is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  the  late  Dr.  John 
Mason  Nealc  computed  the  number  of  hymns 
in  the  earlier  service  books  of  the  Greek  Church 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL.  1 37 

to  be  nearly  five  thousand,  a  fact  which  may  be 
consoling  to  those  who  object,  in  our  own 
hymnal,  to  so  many  as  five  hundred ! 

The  same  reasons  which  had  been  influential 
in  making  the  use  of  hymns  to  be  so  early  so 
conspicuous  a  feature  in  the  Eastern  Church 
were  at  work  in  the  West;  and  in  the  Western  or 
Latin  Church  the  movement  was  hastened  by 
an  incident  of  exceptional  and  even  pathetic 
character.  Undoubtedly  the  two  great  leaders 
in  this  matter  were  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  and  St. 
Ambrose.  Of  the  latter  you  are  to  hear  from 
another,  but  of  St.  Hilary  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  he  was  banished  from  his  see  A.  D.  356,  and' 
was  absent  from  it  in  Asia  Minor  for  about  four 
years.  During  those  four  years  St.  Jerome,  who 
was  near  middle  life  when  St.  Hilary  died,  and 
who  had  lived  in  and  near  his  diocese,  tells  us 
that  he  wrote  a  book  of  hymns.  His  residence  in 
the  East,  where  he  had  taken  part  in  one  of  the 
Councils  of  the  Eastern  Church,  had  doubtless 
familiarized  him  with  its  worship,  in  which  the 
singing  of  hymns  bore  so  large  a  part;  and  it 
was  quite  natural  that  he  should  turn,  in  his 
enforced  leisure,  to  so  kindred  an  occupation 
as  their  composition.  Already,  in  his  western 
home,  as  Jerome  elsewhere  mentions,  the  use 


138  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

of  sacred  song  had  become  the  habit  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  one  who  "  went  into  the  fields  might 
hear  the  ploughman  at  his  hallelujahs,  the  mower 
at  his  hymns,  and  the  vine-dressers  singing  Da- 
vid's psalms." 

It  was  a  custom  of  profound  and  far-reaching 
influence  which  thus  grew  up  in  the  Church  of 
the  West;  and  the  evolution  of  the  hymn  in  the 
form  substantially  in  which  we  have  it  to-day 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  studies  in  the  de- 
velopment of  Western  Christianity.  The  fore- 
most authority,  I  venture  to  think,  upon  this 
subject — one  to  whom  another  whom  I  have 
already  mentioned,  Dr.  John  Mason  Neale,  refers 
as  tk  the  first  Victorian  scholar  in  England  and 
probably  in  Europe,"  the  late  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  Dr.  Trench — has  pointed  out,  with  a 
rare  and  penetrating  acumen,*  that  "  there  is 
one  very  obvious  and  yet  very  noteworthy  dif- 
ference between  the  Christian  literature  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world,  on  the  one  side,  and 
all  other  and  later  Christian  literatures  on  the 
other,  namely,  that  the  Greek  and  Eat  in  litera- 
tures of  Christian  authorship  were,  so  to  speak, 
a  new  budding  and  blossoming  out   of  an  old 

*  Sacred  Latin  Poetry,  p.  3  et  seq. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 39 

stock  which,  when  the  Church  was  founded,  had 
already  put  forth,  or  was  in  the  act  of  putting 
forth,  all  which,  in  the  natural  order  of  things, 
and  but  for  the  quickening  breath  of  a  new  and 
unexpected  life,  it  could  ever  have  unfolded. 
They  are  as  a  second  and  later  spring  coming 
in  the  rear  of  the  timelier  and  the  first.  For  that 
task  which  the  new  religion  had  to  accomplish 
in  all  other  regions  of  man's  life  it  had  also  to 
accomplish  in  this.  It  was  not  granted  to  it  at 
first  entirely  to  make  or  mould  a  society  of  its 
own.  A  harder  task  was  assigned  to  it — being, 
as  it  was,  superinduced  on  a  society  which  had 
long  before  come  into  existence,  and  had  grad- 
ually assumed  the  conditions  which  it  now  wore 
under  very  different  conditions  and  in  obedience 
to  very  different  influences.  Of  this  it  had  to 
make  the  best  that  it  could;  not  only  to  reject 
and  put  under  ban  that  in  it  which  was  absolutely 
incurable,  and  which  directly  contradicted  its 
fundamental  idea,  but,  of  the  rest,  to  assimilate 
to  itself  what  was  capable  of  assimilation,  to 
transmute  what  was  willing  to  be  transmuted; 
to  consecrate  what  was  prepared  to  receive  from 
it  a  higher  consecration,  and  altogether  to  ad- 
just, not  always  with  perfect  success,  but  as  best 
it  might,  often  at  the  cost  of  much  forbearance 


I4O  THE  HYMNS   OF   THE    ORDINAL. 

and  self-sacrifice,  its  relations  to  the  old  which 
had  grown  up  under  heathen  auspices  "  and  in  a 
heathen  atmosphere. 

This,  I  say,  was  what  the  new  religion  had  to 
do  with  reference  to  the  family,  the  state,  social 
intercourse,  art,  commerce,  in  one  word,  all  that 
makes  up  man's  moral  and  intellectual  life.  It 
had  the  same  thing  to  do  with  heathen  literature 
— its  forms,  its  traditions,  its  modes  of  expres- 
sion. The  task  was  quite  a  different  one,  as 
Trench  has  shown,  in  the  case  of  other  and  more 
modern  peoples.  These,  indeed,  had  a  language, 
and  in  some  meagre  sense  a  literature.  But 
both  were  relatively  young  and  plastic,  and  it" 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Christianity  moulded 
and  dominated  them  rather  than  they  affected 
or  influenced  it. 

But  it  was  otherwise  with  the  Latin  tongue. 
That,  "  when  the  Church  arose,  requiring  of  it  to 
be  the  organ  of  the  Divine  Word,  to  tell  out  all 
the  new  and  as  yet  undreamt  of  life  that  was 
stirring  in  her  breast;  demanding  of  it  that  it 
should  reach  her  needs — needs  that  had  hardly 
or  not  at  all  existed  while  the  language  was  in 
process  of  formation  —  that  was  already  full- 
formed  and  had  reached  its  climacteric."  The 
Church  could  not  therefore  create  a  Latin  tongue 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL.  141 

to  be  the  vehicle  of  communication  with  those 
various  peoples,  under  the  rule  of  the  vast  Empire 
of  Rome,  to  whom  she  came.  She  had  to  take  the 
Latin  tongue  as  she  found  it,  and  use  it  and  read- 
just it,  and  enrich  and,  above  all,  popularize  it, 
to  be  the  devotional  language  of  the  civilized 
world.  Nothing,  I  repeat,  is  more  profoundly- 
interesting  or  more  profoundly  impressive  than 
the  way  in  which  she  did  so.  No  language  of 
superlative  can  exaggerate  the  splendor  and 
beauty  of  classic  poetry,  whether  Grecian  or 
Roman.  The  high  authority  whom  I  have  al- 
ready quoted,  concluding  his  exquisite  essay  on 
sacred  Latin  poetry,  says  of  it  in  substance  that, 
beautiful  as  some  of  it  is,  it  must  still  leave  "  the 
great  masterpieces  of  Greece  and  Rome  forever 
without  a  peer."  That  is  undoubtedly  true. 
There  has  been  but  one  Homer,  but  one  Virgil, 
but  one  Pindar,  but  one  Horace.  But,  exquisite 
as  were  the  forms  in  which  Latin  verse  had  cast 
itself,  it  did  not  take  a  great  while  for  the  Church 
to  discover  that  it  was  ill-suited  to  the  higher 
uses  for  which  she  sought  rhythmical  and  poet- 
ical forms  of  expression.  If  there  were  no  other 
and  subtler  reason,  there  remained  the  evil  of  its 
associations.  Who  could  sing  a  Christian  hymn 
in  a  metre  which  Catullus  had  made  familiar? 


142  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

Who  could  worship  Christ  with  rhythms  that 
had  been  prostituted  to  the  vilest  heathen  rites? 
And  there  was  yet  another  reason  for  some  sort 
of  change,  which  had  in  it  a  most  inspiring  sig- 
nificance. If  a  Latin  hexameter  verse  is  not 
within  the  reach  of  anyone  to  whom  I  speak  this 
afternoon,  let  such  an  one  get  hold  of  Arthur 
Hugh  Clough's  charming  poem,  "  The  Bothie 
of  Tober-na-Vuolich,"  which  is  written  in  Eng- 
lish hexameters.  There  is  undoubtedly  an  ele- 
ment of  attraction  in  that  famous  classic  metre. 
But  no  one  would  for  a  moment  think  of  casting 
into  such  a  form  a  hymn  or  poem  meant  for  the 
use  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  It  is  pre- 
eminently a  scholar's  metre,  with  a  charm  too 
subtle  and  elusive  to  appeal  to  any  other  than  a 
scholar's  ear.  And  so  of  all  the  rest.  When  to- 
day one  reads  a  sacred  hymn  or  poem  in  sapphics, 
or  alcaics,  or  hendecasyllables,  there  is  in  it  the 
double  incongruity  of  the  aroma  of  its  heathen 
associations,  and  the  obscurity  of  its  scholastic 
niceties. 

I  have  dealt  upon  this  point  at  what  you  may 
regard  as  disproportionate  length,  because  it 
is  the  porch  through  which  a  very  large  and 
mightily  influential  element  of  Christian  wor- 
ship passed  out  of  the  dominion  of  classic  forms 


THE   HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL,  1 43 

of  verse  into  those  others  with  which  to-day  we 
are  most  of  all  familiar.  What,  now,  is  it  in 
these  which  most  of  all  helps  to  fix  them  in  the 
memory  and  to  make  the  people  sing  them?  It 
is,  I  maintain,  that  distinctive  and  (in  contrast 
with  classic  forms)  comparatively  modern  feat- 
ure which  distinguishes  them  as  rhythmical 
rather  than  merely  metrical,  and  which  culmi- 
nated ultimately  in  the  terminal  assonance  or 
consonance  which  we  know  as  rhyme.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  claim,  as  some  writers  have  done, 
either  that  this  is  an  exclusively  distinctive  feat- 
ure of  sacred  Latin  verse,  or  that  its  existence 
elsewhere  in  modern  literature  is  owing  wholly 
to  the  influence  of  sacred  Latin  poetry.  A  very 
superficial  examination  of  the  evidence  in  the 
case  must  convince  one  that  rhymed  verse  is  as 
old  as  Persian  poetry,  and  that  instances  of  it 
may  be  found  in  Chinese  and  Sanscrit  and  in 
Arabic  poems,  as  well  as  in  the  Andromache  of 
Ennius,  and  other  Latin  poets;  and  as  Plutarch 
has  shown,  even  in  Homer  itself — sources  which 
all  of  them  have  influenced  later  scholars  as  well 
as  the  splendid  treasure-house  of  Latin  hymnol- 
ogy.  But  what  I  do  maintain  is  that  it  was  in 
this  connection  that  rhymed  verse  took  on  its 
largest  distinction,  and  rose  at  length  to  singular 


144  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL. 

heights  of  grace  and  beauty.  And  I  do  not  think 
that  one  need  search  far  to  explain  it.  Mr.  Guest, 
in  his  "  History  of  English  Rhythms,"  *  has  said 
that  rhyme  "  is  not,  as  is  sometimes  asserted, 
a  mere  ornament;  it  marks  and  defines  the  ac- 
cent, and  thereby  strengthens  and  supports  the 
rhythm.  Its  advantages  have  been  felt  so  strong- 
ly that  no  people  has  ever  adopted  an  accentual 
rhythm  without  also  adopting  rhyme."  And  for 
this  I  believe  that  there  is  a  very  profound  reason. 
Have  you  ever  lain  awake  at  night  by  the  sea, 
and  listened  to  the  successive  breaking  of  the 
waves  upon  the  shore,  or,  in  travel,  have  you 
ever  noted  the  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  ictus 
of  the  rails,  as  the  wheels  of  your  car,  one  after 
another,  struck  them  and  left  them?  In  both 
these  cases  there  was  rhythm,  the  one  that  of 
nature,  the  other  that  of  mechanical  art;  but 
both  producing  the  same  effect,  of  which  I  think 
the  finest  instance  in  our  own  tongue  is  that 
matchless  poem  of  Tennyson's, 

"  Break,  Break,  Break, 
On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  sea, 
And  T  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me  !  " 

*  Vol.  i-,  p.  1 16. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 45 

Can  anyone  doubt  that  here  the  rhythmic 
regulated  recurrence — the  iterance  of  substan- 
tially the  same  sound  at  substantially  the  same 
interval — made  the  poem,  and  made  it  because 
in  the  human  intelligence  there  is  something 
responsive  to  rhythmic  and  periodic  sounds 
speaking  "  of  order,  proportion,  purpose  " — and 
so,  of  the  great  Soul  that  throbs  behind  all  this 
marshalled  pageantry  of  nature,  and  who  is  him- 
self the  God  of  a  divine  order,  proportion,  pur- 
pose? Ewald,  in  his  "  Poetic  Books  of  the  Old 
Testament,"  *  has  a  passage  which  puts  this 
thought  with  singular  and  characteristic  force. 
"  A  stream  of  words  and  images,  an  impetuous 
diction,  a  movement  which,  in  the  first  violence, 
seems  to  know  no  bounds  nor  control — such  is 
the  earliest  manifestation  of  poetic  diction.  But 
a  diction  which  should  only  continue  in  this  its 
earliest  movement,  and  hurry  onward  without 
bounds  and  without  measure,  would  soon  de- 
stroy its  own  beauty,  even  its  very  life.  Yea, 
rather  the  more  living  and  overflowing  this  on- 
ward movement  is,  by  so  much  the  more  needful 
the  restraint  and  the  limitation,  the  counterac- 
tion and  tranquillization  of  this  becomes.    This 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  57. 
10 


146  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL, 

mighty  inspiration  and  expiration;  this  rise,  with 
its  commensurate  fall;  this  advance  in  sym- 
metrical diction,  which  shall  combine  rest  and 
motion  with  one  another,  and  mutually  reconcile 
them;  this  is  rhythm  or  regulated  beautiful 
movement."  Could  there  be  more  apt  or  sugges- 
tive intimation  of  the  way  in  which,  in  the  his- 
tory of  Western  Christianity,  hymnody  gathered 
up  the  young  and  fervid  devotional  life  of  earlier 
ages,  and,  as  the  centuries  advanced,  gave  it 
unceasingly  full,  and  fervid,  and  felicitous  ex- 
pression? 

It  is  of  one  particular  illustration  of  it  that  I 
am  more  especially  to  speak  this  afternoon.  It 
cannot  be  claimed  that  it  is  the  greatest  or  most 
beautiful  of  Latin  hymns,  nor  yet  the  most  ven- 
erable in  age,  or  distinguished  as  to  authorship. 
The  metrical  hymns  of  St.  Hilary  or  St.  Ambrose 
long  preceded  it,  as  did  the  beautiful  hymns  of 
Prudentius,  who,  it  may  interest  my  brethren  of 
the  laity  to  know,  was  himself  a  Spanish  layman, 
born  in  Saragossa  in  a.d.  348,  and  a  contempo- 
rary of  Hilary  and  Ambrose. 

The  Hymn  which,  in  two  forms,  we  find  in  our 
Office  for  the  Ordination  of  Priests  and  that  for 
"  Ordaining  and  Consecrating  "  Bishops  is  of  a 
much  later  date.     It  has  been  ascribed  to  St. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDIXAL.  147 

Ambrose,  but  it  is  not  claimed  by  his  Benedic- 
tine editors,  and  there  is  probably  no  better  war- 
rant for  the  claim  than  that  to  Ambrose  a  great 
multitude  of  Latin  hymns  were  ascribed  in  times 
subsequent  to  his  own,  simply  because  they  had 
evidently  been  composed  after  the  model  and 
pattern  of  hymns  of  which  undoubtedly  he  was 
the  author.*  A  far  more  common  and  popular 
belief  is  that  which  has  attributed  the  hymn  to 
the  Emperor  Charlemagne.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  this  remarkable  historical  personage,  who 
exercised  so  extraordinary  an  influence  in  the 
somewhat  forceful  conversion  of  the  Gothic  na- 
tions, was  a  writer  of  hymns,  and  that  his  char- 
acter was  distinguished  by  a  marked  devotional 
element;  but  there  is  even  less  doubt  that,  in  this 
case,  his  identity  has  been  confounded  with  that 
of  another  sovereign,  his  grandson  Charles  the 
Bald.  In  our  Office  for  the  Burial  of  the  Dead 
there  is  an  anthem,  "  Man  that  is  born  of  a  Wom- 
an," which  is  undoubtedly  the  composition  of  a 
monk  of  St.  Gall  in  Switzerland,  Xotker  by  name, 
to  whom  also,  I  may  mention  in  passing,  some 
of  the  best  authorities  trace  the  great  hymn 
"  Dies    Iree"     Of  this  saint  and  scholar  there 

*  See  note  A.,  p.  160. 


148  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL. 

survives  a  biography  written  in  the  thirteenth 
century  by  Ekkehard.  This  work,  as  the  late 
Lord  Selborne  (better  known  to  most  of  us  as 
Sir  Roundell  Palmer),  to  whom  in  this  connec- 
tion I  am  glad  to  own  my  large  indebtedness, 
has  pointed  out,  was  written  in  the  same  Bene- 
dictine monastery  to  which  Notker  had  be- 
longed, and  the  "  biographer  relates  that  Notker 
— a  man  of  gentle,  contemplative  nature,  ob- 
servant of  all  around  him,  and  accustomed  to 
find  spiritual  and  poetical  suggestions  in  com- 
mon sights  and  sounds  —  was  moved  by  the 
sound  of  a  mill-wheel  (an  illustration,  by  the 
way,  of  what  I  have  already  referred  to)  to  com- 
pose his  "  sequence"  on  the  Holy  Spirit,  "  Sancti 
Spiritus  adsit  nobis  gratia  "  ("Present  with  us 
ever  be  the  Holy  Spirit's  grace  "),  and  that,  when 
finished,  he  sent  it  as  a  present  to  the  "  Emperor 
Charles,"  who,  in  return,  sent  him  back  by  the 
same  messenger  the  hymn  "  Veni  Creator " 
which  (says  Ekkehard)  the  same  Spirit  had  in- 
spired him  to  write  ("  Sibi  idem  Spiritus  insper- 
averat  ").  "  If  this  story,"  says  Lord  Selborne, 
"  is  to  be  credited — and  from  its  circumstantial 
and  almost  dramatic  character  it  has  an  air  of 
truth — the  author  of  'Veni  Creator'  was  not 
Charlemagne,    but    his   grandson,    Charles    the 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 49 

Bold,  who  succeeded  to  the  royal  crown  in  A.  d. 
840  (about  the  time  when  Xotker  was  born)  and 
to  the  imperial  in  875.  Notker  himself  long 
survived  that  emperor  and  died  in  912."  *  An 
additional  though  indirect  confirmation  of  this 
authorship  is  the  fact  that  this  hymn  has,  for 
nearly  a  thousand  years,  been  used  not  only  in 
public  worship,  but  in  connection  with  the  cor- 
onation of  kings,  the  celebration  of  synods,  and 
other  kindred  solemnities.  We  have  already 
sung  the  shorter  of  the  two  versions  of  the  "  Veni 
Creator,"  and  both  are  in  your  Prayer-books  in 
the  Office  for  the  Ordination  of  Priests,  so  that 
I  need  not  repeat  them  here.  The  second  or 
longer  translation  is  the  older,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  been  made  by  Archbishop  Cranmer  in 
connection  with  the  revision  of  the  Ordinal  by 
the  Commission,  of  which  he  was  a  member  and 
probably  the  guiding  spirit.  The  shorter  ver- 
sion, which  stands  first  in  the  Office,  and  which 
is  most  commonly  used,  was  not  introduced  un- 
til 1662,  and  Blunt  is  authority  for  saying  that 
it  was  made  by  the  poet  Dryden.  The  earlier 
or  longer  translation  by  Cranmer  is  perhaps  open 
to  the  charge  of  being,  in  some  respects,  a  para- 

*  Lord  Selborne,  Hymns.     Encyc.  Brit.,  vol.  xii.,  p.  583. 


150  THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

phrase  rather  than  a  translation,  though  it  must 
be  owned  that  the  first  two  lines  of  each  of  the 
sixteen  verses  of  which  it  is  composed  adhere 
closely  to  the  Latin  original.  Dryden's  trans- 
lation gains  undoubtedly  in  compactness,  but 
there  is  in  some  of  the  verses  of  the  longer  trans- 
lation, a  singular  quaintness  and  almost  rustic 
beauty  which  have  a  very  real  charm  of  their 
own. 

Neither  of  them,  however,  at  all  brings  over 
into  our  less  fluid  and  eloquent  tongue  the  na- 
tive grace  and  exquisite  rhythm  of  the  Latin 
original.  That,  indeed,  we  may  not  hope  to  se- 
cure, in  the  matter  of  verse,  by  any  translation 
by  any  whatsoever  most  gifted  hand.  A  lan- 
guage is  like  a  landscape;  you  can  reproduce  it 
upon  canvas,  but  you  cannot  transplant  it.  And 
the  figure  the  better  serves  my  purpose  because 
there  is  in  speech,  as  in  scenery,  a  light  and  aroma 
of  its  own.  These  are  too  subtle  for  chemical 
analysis  or  transmutation.  All  the  airs  of  Greece 
pulse  through  the  strains  of  Homer;  but  a 
French  translation  of  Shakespeare  is  like  an 
Italian  version  of  Pilgrim's  Progress,  an  echo, 
not  the  strain  itself.  I  shall  therefore  venture 
to  read  this  great  Latin  hymn  in  the  original, 
even  at  the  cost  of  being  charged  with  a  cheap 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 5  I 

pedantry  for  doing  so,  just  because  in  no  other 
way  can  you  so  easily  detect  in  it  what  I  have 
endeavored  to  make  plain  to  you  as  to  the  grace 
and  charm  of  the  form  of  Sacred  Latin  verse; 
remembering,  moreover,  that  everyone  of  you 
has,  at  this  moment,  the  two  English  versions  of 
it  within  easy  reach  of  your  hand.  The  version 
which  I  quote  is  from  Trench's  matchless  work 
on  "  Sacred  Latin  Poetry,"  *  and  is  fuller,  and, 
I  apprehend,  more  accurate,  than  any  other: 

Veni  Creator  Spiritus, 
Mentes  tuorum  visita, 
Imple  superna  gratia 
Quoe  to  creasti  pectora. 

Qui  Paraclitus  diceris, 
Altissimi  donum  Dei, 
Fons  vivus,  ignis,  caritas, 
Et  spiritalis  unctio. 

Tu  septiformis  munere 
Dextrse  Dei  tu  digitus, 
Tu  rite  promissum  Patris, 
Sermone  ditans  guttura. 

Accende  lumen  sensibus, 
Infund(e)  amorem  cordibus, 
Irfirma  nostri  corporis 
Virtute  firmans  perpeti. 

*  Pp.  167-169. 


152  THE   HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDIXAL. 

Hostem  repellas  longius, 
Pacemque  dones  protinus, 
Ductore  sic  te  proevio 
Vitemus  omne  noxium. 

Da  gaudiorum  pr?emia, 
Da  gratiarum  munera, 
Dissolve  litis  vincula, 
Adstringe  pacis  foedera. 

Per  te  sciamus  da,  Patrem, 
Noscamus  atque  Filium, 
Te  utriusque  Spiritum 
Credamus  omni  tempore. 

Sit  laus  Patri  cum  Filio, 
Sancto  simul  Paraclito, 
Nobisque  mittat  Filius 
Charisma  Sancti  Spiritus.* 

An  illustration  or  two  will  show  how  closely 
this  hymn  follows  the  teachings  of  Holy  Script- 
ure and  with  what  singular  felicity  a  wide  refer- 
ence to  its  various  utterances  as  to  the  office  and 
work  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  packed  into  the  nar- 
row compass  of  a  few  lines.  In  the  second  verse 
there  occur  the  two  lines, 

"  Fans  zrivus,  ignis,  caritas, 

Et  s pi ri talis  Ultctio" 


*  Sec  Note  H,  pneje  l6o. 


THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL.  1 53 

which  the  second  or  fuller  and  (in  this  instance) 
closer  translation  renders: 

"  The  fountain  and  the  living  spring 
Of  joy  celestial, 

The  fire  so  bright,  the  love  so  sweet, 
The  unction  spiritual." 

But  this  is  not  mere  rhetoric.  We  turn  from  the 
"  fons  vivus,"  "  the  fountain  and  the  living 
spring,"  to  St.  John's  Gospel  and  we  read:*  "  In 
the  last  day,  that  great  day  of  the  feast  Jesus 
stood  and  cried  saying, '  If  any  man  thirst  let  him 
come  unto  me,  and  drink.  He  that  believeth  on 
me,  as  the  Scripture  saith,  out  of  him  shall  flow 
rivers  of  living  water."  Or  we  ask  for  what 
"  ignis,"  "  the  fire  so  bright,"  stands,  and  we  turn 
to  St.  Luke's  Gospel  and  read:  "  I  am  come  to 
send  fire  on  the  earth :  and  what  will  I,  if  it  be  al- 
ready kindled?"  t  The  Latin  caritas  ("  the  love 
so  sweet,"  as  it  is  rendered)  carries  us  straight- 
way to  those  words  of  St.  Paul's  in  his  letter  to 
the  Church  at  Rome:  "  The  love  of  God  is  shed 
abroad  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost  which 
is  given  us;  "  X  and  the  Latin  "  unctio,"  to  those 

*  St.  John  vii.  37,  38. 
f  St.  Luke  xii.  49. 
%  Romans  v.  5. 


154  THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

words  in  St.  John's  First  Epistle  General,  "  Ye 
have  an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,"  and  "  the 
anointing  which  ye  have  received  abideth  in 
you  and  ye  need  not  that  any  man  should  teach 
you,"  for  "  the  same  anointing  teacheth  you 
all  things."  * 

I  may  not,  within  these  narrow  limits,  pursue 
further  this  exegetical  line  of  comment;  but  be- 
fore I  dismiss  it  I  may  venture  perhaps  to  call 
your  attention  to  one  singularly  exquisite  and 
suggestive  line  in  this  noble  hymn  which  reveals 
at  once  the  spiritual  perception  of  its  author, 
and  an  evident  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  in  an  age  which  is  least  credited  with  it; 
and  that,  on  the  part  of  one  from  whom  in  these 
days,  I  fear,  it  would  be  least  expected.  It  is 
found  in  the  third  stanza  and  is  second  in  the 
couplet, 

"  Tu  septiformis  munere, 
Dextroe  Dei  tu  digitus," 

which  the  fuller  English  version  renders, 

"  Thou  in  thy  gifts  art  manifold, 
l>y  them  Christ's  Church  doth  stand, 
In  faithful  hearts  thou  writest  thy  law, 
The  finger  of  Clod's  hand." 

*  l  John  ii.  20,  27. 


THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL.  1  55 

That  is,  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  finger,  as  it  were, 
of  God's  hand,  by  which  finger  He  writes  His 
law  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Now,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  where  the  writer  of  this  hymn  de- 
rived this  image.  In  St.  Luke's  Gospel  *  there  is 
a  scene  between  Christ  and  His  critics  in  which 
He  uses  the  words  "  If  I  with  the  finger  of  God 
cast  out  devils,  no  doubt  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
come  upon  you."  But  that  which  interprets  the 
phrase  "  the  finger  of  God  "  is  plainly  the  par- 
allel passage  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  t  where 
the  phrase  is  "  If  I  cast  out  devils  by  the  Spirit 
of  God,  then  the  kingdom  of  God  is  come  unto 
you."  The  finger  thus  becomes  the  image  of 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  transferring,  fix- 
ing, and  engraving,  so  to  speak,  spiritual  im- 
pressions. "  Thou  writest."  St.  Augustine,  in 
his  Commentary  on  the  ninetieth  Psalm,  carries 
the  thought  a  step  farther  with  penetrating 
and  yet  not  too  subtle  suggestiveness.  "  By  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God,"  he  says  substantially,  "  the 
gifts  of  God  are  distributed,  and  accomplish  thus 
their  diverse  work;  and  yet  as  the  fingers  of  the 
hand  are  parts  of  one  whole,  and  are  joined  to- 


*  St.  Luke  xi.  20. 
f  St.  Matthew  xii.  28. 


156  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE    ORDINAL. 

gether  in  one  hand,  even  so  the  various  gifts  and 
operations  of  the  Spirit  return  for  their  source 
to  one  centre,  and  are  united  in  one  root,"  * 
And  in  the  De  Civitatis  Dei "  f  there  is  a  fine 
passage  in  which  Augustine  points  out  how  the 
phrase  which  Christ  uses  in  speaking  of  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  recalls  the  tables  of  the  elder 
law  written  with  the  finger  of  God.  Certainly 
such  imagery  invests  the  act  of  the  laying  on  of 
hands  with  a  new  august  solemnity.  The  human 
instrument  becomes  a  veritable  symbol  of  the 
divine,  and  no  poor  superstition  as  to  the  power 
of  a  merely  magical  touch  can  cloud  or  belittle 
its  great  and  most  solemn  import. 

I  would  that  these  limits  allowed  me  to  pursue 
further  this  line  of  comment.  But  though  I  may 
not  do  so,  I  cannot  leave  it  without  calling  your 
attention  to  a  certain  largeness  in  the  tone  of 
this  ancient  hymn  which  is  not  its  least  noble 
characteristic.  In  the  second  couplet  of  the 
sixth  verse  occur  the  lines: 

"  Dissolve  litis  vincula, 
Adstringe  pacis  fcedera."  % 


■■  St.  Augustine,  Enarr.  2d,  Ps.  xc. ,  Vs.  cxliii. 
•|  De  Civitatis  /)<■/',  I,  16,  c.  43. 
\  See  Note  C,  page  160. 


THE  HYMNS   OF   THE    ORDINAL.  1 57 

which  the  earlier  translation  has  not  unworthily 
rendered, 

"  Of  strife  and  of  dissension 
Dissolve,  O  Lord,  the  bands, 
And  knit  the  knots  of  peace  and  love 
Throughout  all  Christian  lands." 

Surely  that  is  a  conception  worthy  not  only 
of  a  great  sovereign,  but  of  a  great  soul !  We  go 
back  in  imagination  to  the  age  and  to  the  ruler 
with  which  it  was  connected.  How  elementary 
and  almost  barbaric  it  was  in  much,  if  not  most, 
that  most  people  esteem  to-day,  as  making  up 
what  they  call  civilization.  How  bare  life  was 
of  much  that  enriches  our  life — how  meagre  its 
literature,  how  scanty  its  means  of  communica- 
tion, how  grotesque  many  of  its  superstitions, 
how  cruel  much  of  its  intolerance,  how  simple, 
if  not  childish,  its  faith.  For  nearly  four  cen- 
turies the  work  of  a  mediaeval  monk,  the  Fran- 
ciscan, Bartholomew,  on  "  The  Properties  of 
Thing,"  *  which  taught  "  If  a  crocodile  find- 
eth  a  man  by  the  water's  brim,  he  slayeth  him, 
and  then  he  weepeth  over  him,  and  swalloweth 
him/'  was  the  standard  work  of  natural  history. 

*  See  White's  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theol- 
ogy, PP-  33-36. 


158  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL. 

For  a  much  longer  period  the  great  mass  of  peo- 
ple lived  and  died  in  a  condition  of  intellectual 
ignorance  which  to-day  would  disgrace  the 
youngest  schoolboy.  And  yet,  out  of  the  midst 
of  such  ignorance  there  arose  a  type  of  Christian 
character,  a  love  of  devout  learning,  a  passion, 
often,  for  personal  sanctity  of  which  I  fear  the 
times  in  which  we  live  are  not  over-full.  A  Chris- 
tian saint  and  scholar  occupies  his  leisure  hours 
in  writing  a  Christian  hymn  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  and  then  sends  it  to  his  sovereign.  His 
sovereign,  busy  with  the  cares  of  state,  with 
wars  and  campaigns,  and  all  the  grave  concerns 
of  a  great  empire,  finds  time  not  only  to  acknowl- 
edge the  courtesy,  but  to  return  it,  and  to  return 
it  in  such  kind  that  the  Church  takes  up  the 
hymn  which  this  king  wrote  a  thousand  years 
ago,  and  hands  it  on  and  down  through  all  the 
changing  centuries  to  tell  up  into  the  hearken- 
ing ear  of  God  that  never-ending  need  alike  of 
priests  and  people  which  is,  of  all  other  needs, 
the  greatest!  One  turns  from  such  an  age  and 
such  rulers  to  our  own.  We  have  gained  much 
since  then,  we  say.  There  is  more  light,  more 
knowledge,  more  various  learning,  less  supersti- 
tion, less  priestcraft,  less  idolatry,  less  cruelty, 
less  tyranny,  less  suffering  in  the  world  now.     I 


THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL.  1 59 

hope  so.  But  how  about  the  vision  of  the  eter- 
nal? A  man  may  be  very  clever  about  the  Mo- 
saic cosmogony,  about  astronomy,  about  the 
liberties  of  the  people — his  vision  may  have  been 
so  widened  that  he  can  take  in  a  far  wider  area 
of  facts  from  which  to  generalize  than  the  earlier 
centuries  ever  dreamed  of.  How  is  it  when  one 
comes  to  look  up?  "I  have  turned  toward  the 
heavens,"  said  the  French  astronomer  La  Lande, 
"  the  most  powerful  telescope  that  ever  was  con- 
structed, and  there  is  nothing  beyond  them!  " 
But  Stephen  could  say,  even  while  the  stones 
crushed  the  life  out  of  his  mangled  body,  "  I  see 
heaven  opened  and  the  Son  of  Man  standing 
on  the  right  hand  of  God !  "  What  gave  to  him 
that  strange  and  transcendent  power  of  upward 
vision?  Ah!  it  was  that  for  which  the  Church 
cries  aloud  when  her  sons  kneel  at  her  altar  and 
ask  for  her  Apostolic  commission: 

"  O  Holy  Ghost  into  our  minds 
Send  down  thy  heavenly  light. 
Kindle  our  hearts  with  fervent  zeal 
To  serve  God  day  and  night !  " 

It  is  this,  and  this  alone,  which  makes  a  min- 
istry of  power.  May  she  never  cease  to  pray  for 
it,  and  may  she  never  be  without  it! 


l6o  THE  HYMNS   OF  THE   ORDINAL, 

Note  A.  Mention  ought  not  to  be  wholly  omitted  of  the  tra- 
dition which  ascribes  this  hymn  to  Gregory  the  Great,  on  the  fol- 
lowing grounds : 

i.  Its  correspondence  with  his  writings  generally,  and  espe- 
cially with  hymns  known  to  be  his. 

2.  Its  classical  metre  with  occasional  rhymes. 

3.  The  correct  quantity  of  the  penultimate  of  Paraclites,  as 
showing  a  knowledge  of  Greek. 

These  arguments  have  undoubtedly  a  certain  force  ;  but  it  is 
highly  improbable  that  a  writer  of  such  eminence  could  have 
written  a  hymn  in  the  sixth  century  which,  for  four  or  five  hun- 
dred years  no  one  dreamed  of  attributing  to  him.  Bede,  in  his 
De  Arte  mefrica,  makes  no  mention  of  it,  and  apart  from  subjec- 
tive grounds  there  is  no  warrant  for  ascribing  the  hymn  to  Greg- 
ory.    (See  Diet.  Hymnol.,  Julian,  p.  1208.) 

Note  B.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  doxology  in  this 
hymn  is  probably  of  later  date  than  the  hymn  itself.  This  is 
indicated  by  the  variations,  in  this  particular,  of  different  ver- 
sions of  the  Hymn.     The  Durham  Hymnal  gives  : 

Sit  laus  Patri  cum  Genito, 
Amborum  et  raraclito, 
Proles  ut  hunc  promiserat, 
Nobis  modoque  tribuat. 

In  the  Roman  Breviary  of  1570  and  1C32,  the  doxology  reads  : 

Deo  Patri  sit  gloria 

Et  Filio,  Qui  a  mortuis 

Surrexit  ac  Paraclito, 

In  sempitcrna  (sacculorum)  sa)cula. 

Note  C.  An  authority  already  quoted  (see  Note  A)  the 
Reverend  John  Julian,  maintains  that  the  stanza  of  which  these 
lines  form  a  part  is  an  addition  to  the  original  text,  and  gives  a 
list  of  early  authorities  in  which   it    is   wanting.     On  the  other 


THE  HYMNS  OF  THE   ORDINAL.  l6l 

hand,  it  is  to  be  found  in  two  manuscripts  in  the  Bodleian  Library, 
one  of  the  twelfth  and  the  other  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  in 
some  of  the  earliest  printed  books,  such  as  the  Basel  Breviary. 
In  any  case,  it  is  an  instance  in  which  one  may  be  glad  that  our 
Anglican  Mother  in  retaining  it,  has  given  us  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt.  Whether  certainly  original  or  not,  it  is  distinctly  an  "  en- 
richment." 


II 


£e  2)eum  Xaufcamus* 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  REV.    WILLIAM   R.  HUNTINGTON,  D.D. 

Rector  of  Grace  Church. 

TE  DEUM  LAUD  AMU S. 

We  have  met  together  to  study  the  most  won- 
derful of  all  the  sacred  songs  of  Christendom — 
the  Te  Deum. 

The  wonder  of  it  is  the  wonder  of  variety.  No 
rival  composition  can  compare  with  the  Te 
Deum  in  point  of  range  and  sweep.  None  is 
tangent  to  the  deeper  thought  of  man  at  so  many 
points.  Other  hymns  may  surpass  it  in  the  ex- 
hibition of  this  or  that  phase  of  feeling,  but 
there  is  none  that  combines  as  this  combines  all 
the  elements  that  enter  into  a  Christian's  con- 
cept of  religion.  The  Te  Deum  is  an  orchestra 
in  which  no  single  instrument  is  lacking;  first  or 
last,  every  chord  is  struck,  every  note  sounded. 
The  soul  listens  and  is  satisfied;  not  one  of  her 
large  demands  has  been  dishonored.  The  splen- 
did  exultancy   of  the   Magnificat,   the   tender 


1 66  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

plaintiveness  of  Nunc  dimittis,  the  cosmic  har- 
monies of  the  Benedicite,  the  clear,  bell-like  tone 
of  the  song  of  Zacharias,  all  seem  to  find  congress 
and  unison  in  what  has  been  well  called  Hymnus 
Optimus,    the  best  of  hymns. 

This  characteristic  of  the  Te  Deum  upon 
which  I  have  fastened  first,  its  comprehensive- 
ness, is  closely  connected  with  what  scholars  now 
conceive  to  have  been  the  origin  of  the  composi- 
tion. Like  many  another  ancient  document, 
the  Te  Deum,  subjected  to  the  search-light  of 
criticism,  has  been  found  to  be  a  product  of 
growth.  It  may  go  against  the  grain  with  many 
of  us  to  surrender  the  pleasing  old  tradition 
which  would  have  it  that  the  hymn  was  extem- 
porized by  St.  Ambrose  and  St.  Augustine  at 
the  font;  the  two  singing  it  antiphonally  as  they 
stood;  but  since  the  story  can  be  traced  no 
farther  than  the  ninth  century,  while  the  hymn 
itself  goes  back  certainly  to  the  fifth,  possibly 
even  to  the  fourth,  we  shall  have  to  subordinate 
sentiment  to  probability,  and  accept  the  findings 
of  scholarship  without  murmur. 

The  best  authorities  upon  the  points  of  author- 
ship and  date,  are,  among  Germans,  Daniel,  the 
learned  compiler  of  the  Thesaurus  Hymnologi- 
ens;  and,  among  Englishmen,  Dr.  Swainson,  late 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS.  1 67 

Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  University 
of  Cambridge,  the  present  accomplished  Bishop 
of  Salisbury,  and  Prebendary  Gibson  of  the 
Cathedral  Chapter  of  Wells.  Almost  all  of  what 
I  have  to  say  in  this  lecture  upon  the  purely 
historical  and  antiquarian  features  of  the  subject 
in  hand  I  say  upon  the  warrant  of  one  or  other 
of  these  eminent  liturgical  scholars.  For  the 
analysis  and  the  interpretation  alone  do  I  make 
any  claim  to  originality  of  treatment,  though 
even,  as  respects  analysis  and  interpretation, 
originality  will,  I  am  quite  aware,  be  deprecated 
by  those  who  hold  fondly  to  the  maxim  that 
whatever  is  new  in  theology  is  false. 

The  Te  Deum  as  a  whole  is  emphatically  a 
hymn  of  the  Western  Church.  The  East,  in  so 
far  as  it  knows  it  at  all,  knows  it  only  in  its  Latin 
form.  And  yet,  curiously  enough,  the  first  ten 
out  of  the  twenty-nine  verses  which  constitute 
the  hymn  as  we  have  it,  are  found  standing  by 
themselves  under  a  Greek  guise  in  no  fewer 
than  four  important  manuscripts.  This  does 
not  prove  that  the  ten  verses  in  question  had  a 
Greek  origin,  for  they  may  have  been  translated 
from  the  Latin  into  the  Greek,  but  it  does  make 
highly  probable  the  supposition  that  this  open- 
ing portion  was  once  a  distinct  hymn,  used  in- 


1 68  TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

dependency  of  what  now  follows  it.  In  fact, 
to  this  conclusion  a  critical  study  of  the  structure 
of  the  hymn  might  of  itself  lead  us,  quite  inde- 
pendently of  the  linguistic  argument,  for  it  is 
evident  to  any  one  intelligently  following  the  Te 
Deum  in  public  worship,  that  when  we  reach  the 
ejaculation  "  Thou  art  the  King  of  Glory,  O 
Christ,"  we  enter,  as  it  were,  upon  a  new  stage, 
make  a  fresh  start,  begin  again. 

Down  to  this  point,  the  hymn  has  been  one  of 
simple  adoration  addressed  to  God  as  such — 
"  We  praise  Thee,  O  God;  we  acknowledge  Thee 
to  be  the  Lord."  How  this  sentiment  is  expanded 
so  as  to  make  it  cover  both  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New  Testament  conceptions  of  the 
nature  of  Deity  we  shall  consider  presently,  for 
the  moment  I  am  simply  calling  attention  to  one 
of  the  two  great  lines  of  cleavage  which  deter- 
mine the  structure  of  the  composition  as  a  whole. 

The  hymn  to  Christ  which  follows  the  confes- 
sion of  the  Trinity  ends  with  the  twenty-first 
verse,  culminating  in  the  words  Make  them 
to  be  numbered  or  rewarded  (according  as  we 
read  '*  numerari  "  or  "  munerari  "  in  the  Latin), 
with  thy  Saints  in  Glory  everlasting. 

The  remaining  eight  verses  of  the  canticle  are, 
with  two  exceptions,  all  of  them  supplicatory  in 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  1 69 

their  character,  and  are  simply  an  echo  of  the 
Psalter.  These,  like  the  opening  verses,  are  ad- 
dressed to  Almighty  God  in  His  character  of 
Ruler  and  Father  of  His  people. 

This  simple  analysis  will  suffice  to  prepare  us 
for  an  interpretative  study  of  the  text.  You  see 
the  whole  tract  of  the  Te  Deum  lying  spread  out 
before  you  in  its  threefold  unity,  with  first,  as  we 
may  say,  an  act  of  worship,  next  an  act  of  faith, 
and  last  an  act  of  supplication.  Let  us  now  go 
on  to  study  these  several  acts  or  movements  in 
their  order,  noting  what  is  most  admirable  or 
curious  in  each,  and  by  scrutinizing  the  purport 
of  the  sentences  in  severalty  prepare  ourselves 
the  better  to  appreciate  the  finished  whole. 

I.  The  dominant  note  of  the  entire  first  section 
is  sounded  in  the  opening  words,  "  We  praise," 
laudamns. 

We  praise  thee,  O  God:  we  acknowledge  thee  to  be  the  Lord. 

All  the  earth  doth  worship  thee:  the  Father  everlasting. 

To  thee  all  Angels  cry  aloud:  the  Heavens  and  all  the  Powers 

therein; 
To  thee  Cherubim  and  Seraphim:  continually  do  cry, 
Holy,  Holy,  Holy;  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth. 
Heaven  and  earth  are  full:  of  the  Majesty  of  thy  glory. 

Here  we  have  adoration  pure  and  simple; 
praise  for  its  own  sake.    To  know  how  to  render 


I70  TE  DRUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

this  is  a  rare  accomplishment.  Souls  capable  of 
attaining  to  it  are  capable  of  the  best,  since 
honest  praise  is  the  outcome  of  an  absolute  un- 
selfishness. And  yet,  when  we  think  of  it,  ado- 
ration ought  not  to  be  such  a  difficult  spiritual 
exercise.  If  only  we  were  single-hearted,  noth- 
ing would  seem  to  us  more  natural  than  praise. 
We  are  so  made  that  whenever  we  discern  ex- 
cellency, whether  in  persons  or  things,  our  im- 
pulse is  to  speak  out  the  joy  stirred  in  us  by  the 
sight.  This  impulse  never  fails  to  assert  itself 
except  when  counteracted  either  by  an  invet- 
erate sluggishness  of  temper  or  else  by  the  active 
forces  of  jealousy  and  hatred.  And  yet,  even 
when  it  has  been  thwarted,  or  suppressed,  there 
is  the  instinct  still  within  us  prompting  us  to  ex- 
press joy  whenever  anything  beautiful  or  glorious 
crosses  the  field  of  vision,  whether  in  that  at- 
mosphere which  covers  the  earth  as  with  a  gar- 
ment or  in  that  more  subtile  ether  where  only 
spiritual  eyesight  tells.  Praise  is  the  form  of  ex- 
pression which  this  joy-instinct  seeks  whenever 
what  has  roused  the  feeling  has  in  it  the  personal 
element.  Things  we  can  admire;  but  only  ac- 
tions, or  the  persons  from  whom  actions  spring, 
can  we  praise.  We  admire  the  statue,  we  praise 
the  sculptor. 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS.  171 

In  worship  we  exercise  toward  God  the  same 
feelings  and  affections  that  hind  us  to  our  fellow- 
men.  Unless  we  allowed  ourselves  to  do  this,  re- 
ligion would  be  struck  dumb.  Of  course,  it  may 
be  urged  that  God  stands  in  no  need  of  our  ado- 
ration, that  since  He  is  in  heaven  and  we  upon 
earth,  any  ascription  of  praise  to  Him  on  our 
part  is  superfluous,  or  worse  than  superfluous. 
This  remonstrance  has  the  more  color  to  it  be- 
cause we  know  that  even  in  our  relations  to  one 
another  a  great  disparity  of  social  or  intellectual 
rank  sometimes  silences  the  voice  of  praise. 
"  What  cares  he,"  we  say  to  ourselves,  of  some 
one  greatly  our  superior,  "  What  cares  he  for  my 
praise  or  for  my  blame  ?  He  is  so  far  up  above 
my  level  that  for  me  to  attempt  or  to  presume 
to  praise  him  would  be  simply  an  impertinence." 

Reasoning  of  this  sort,  when  applied  to  wor- 
ship, chills  the  very  blood  in  religion's  veins;  but 
happily  the  fallacy  of  it  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
thing  which  hinders  the  man  of  high  degree 
from  welcoming  and  appreciating  the  praise  of 
the  man  of  low  degree  is  pride.  Blot  pride  al- 
together out  of  your  mind's  image  of  the  Divine 
Majesty,  and  there  ceases  to  be  any  difficulty  in 
supposing  praise,  even  the  poor  praise  of  mortal 
men,  to  be  acceptable  with  God.    In  fact,  when 


172  TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

we  come  to  think  of  it,  our  praise  is  the  only 
thing  we  have  that  we  can  give  Him.  Every- 
thing else  is  His  already. 

Of  course  it  is  easy  to  sneer  at  this  mode  of 
conceiving  our  duty  toward  God  as  anthropo- 
morphic. But  is  it  not  a  sheer  necessity  that  all 
our  discourse  of  the  Almighty  should  utter  it- 
self in  anthropomorphic,  or,  to  use  plainer  Eng- 
lish, in  humanized  speech  ?  We  have  no  other; 
so  long  as  we  depend  for  our  vocabulary  upon 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  this  world  present  we 
need  expect  no  other.  The  body  of  language 
with  which  all  human  thought  is  clothed  upon 
is  a  body  terrestrial,  and  if  we  are  to  utter  our- 
selves to  God  at  all  we  must  do  so  in  forms  of 
words  not  wholly  unlike  those  we  should  employ 
were  we  addressing  the  purest,  wisest,  worthiest 
of  men.  If  we  praise  a  liberator  of  nations  for 
his  prowess,  if  we  praise  a  painter  for  his  picture, 
if  we  praise  a  poet  for  his  song,  so  must  we  be 
willing,  unless  we  propose  to  dispense  with  ar- 
ticulate speech  altogether  in  our  religious  life, 
to  praise  God  for  His  mighty  acts,  to  praise  Him 
according  to  His  excellent  greatness. 

No,  so  far  as  we  who  pro.fess  and  call  ourselves 
Christians  are  concerned,  it  is  not  any  quibble 
about  God's  unwillingness  to  receive  praise  that 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  173 

troubles  us,  it  is  rather  our  own  mortifying  in- 
capacity to  render  praise.  But  this  is  just  where 
the  Te  Deum  comes  in  to  help  us  with  its  splen- 
did confidence  in  creation's  capacity  to  adore. 
What  a  proud  universal  it  is,  that  second  verse, 
"  All  the  earth  doth  worship  thee."  We  detect 
no  falsetto  in  that  note.  Clearly  the  first  singer 
of  this  song  was  a  believer  who  believed  with  all 
his  heart,  with  all  his  mind,  with  all  his  soul,  and 
with  all  his  strength.  Even  in  the  best  religious 
poetry  of  our  own  day,  from  Matthew  Arnold's 
to  Cardinal  Newman's,  there  lurks  a  gentle  tone 
of  incertitude;  but  no  such  blemish  mars  this 
virile  note.  For  the  moment,  unbelief,  half-be- 
lief, misbelief,  seem,  all  of  them,  forgotten,  and 
we  picture  the  great  round  world  to  ourselves  as 
a  converted,  a  God-fearing,  God-serving,  God- 
loving  world;  every  denizen  of  it  ready  and  eager 
to  give  thanks — All  the  earth  doth  worship 
Thee. 

And  then,  too,  how  encouraging,  how  uplift- 
ing is  this  proud  alliance  with  the  invisible  choirs, 
this  joining  forces  with  all  angels,  all  heavens, 
and  all  powers,  with  cherubim  and  seraphim, 
yes,  with  whatever  creature  or  child  of  God  has 
right  anywhere  in  God's  wide  universe  to  lift 
that  full  Ter  Sanctus  in  which  man's  adoration 


174  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

everywhere  must  culminate,  Holy,  Holy,  Holy, 
Lord  God  of  Hosts.  Great  is  the  wealth  of  com- 
fort hidden  in  the  thought  that  it  is  possible  thus 
to  become  confederate  with  those  who  know 
how  to  worship  even  if  we  do  not.  It  is  a  relief, 
moreover,  to  be  reminded  that  we  are  not  the 
only  ones  m  all  God's  worlds  upon  whom  the 
responsibility  of  giving  praise  rests.  Your  voice 
or  mine  may  falter,  your  thoughts  or  mine  may 
wander,  but  there  is  really  no  lull  perceptible  in 
the  full-voiced  anthem.  The  heavenly  choruses 
sing  on.  All  are  not  wavering  though  we  waver, 
all  are  not  failing  though  we  fail;  but  somewhere 
in  the  great  temple  of  the  divine  presence  they 
who  excel  in  strength  are  making  our  weakness 
good. 

Close  upon  this  representation  of  the  worship- 
ping universe  follows  the  companion  picture  of 
the  worshipping  Church  of  Christ.  Thus  far 
every  thing  has  been  proceeding  upon  the  level 
of  a  theological  territory  which  Jew  and  Chris- 
tian hold  in  common.  We  seldom  stop  to  think, 
and  it  is  well  that  we  should,  now  and  then,  bo 
reminded  how  broad  that  territory  is.  The 
Church  and  the  Synagogue  are  co-inheritors  of 
a  treasure  larger  than  is  commonly  supposed. 
We  sing  Thomas  Olivers'  majestic  hymn, 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  1 75 

The  God  of  Abraham  praise, 
Who  reigns  enthroned  above, 

with  no  sense  of  incongruity;  and  yet  it  is  (so 
Julian  the  hymnologist  assures  us),  only  a  "  free 
rendering  "  of  an  old  doxology  which  "  rehearses 
in  metrical  form  the  thirteen  articles  of  the  He- 
brew Creed."  Yes,  their  God  is  our  God.  "  For 
the  hope  of  Israel,"  cries  Paul,  "  I  am  bound 
with  this  chain."  And  it  was  "  in  the  year  that 
King  Uzziah  died,"  seven  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  that  Isaiah  heard  the  "  Holy,  Holy, 
Holy,"  sung. 

Christianity  is  not  the  negation  of  Judaism,  it 
is  rather  Judaism  plus  the  new  truths  brought 
into  the  world  through  the  incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God.  So  here  in  the  opening  sentences  of 
the  Te  Deum,  after  we  have  laid  the  foundation 
of  praise  in  words  to  which  Noah,  Daniel,  and 
Job  might  have  assented,  after  we  have  recog- 
nized as  fellow-worshippers  those  whose  names 
and  titles  were  as  dear  to  the  true  believers  of  the 
elder  world  as  they  are  to  us  of  Christian  times, 
we  go  on  to  recognize  and  to  adopt  what  is 
special  to  the  New  Testament,  and  to  affirm  of 
the  Apostles,  Prophets,  and  Martyrs  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  that  they  as  well  as  the  Angels  and  the 
Powers,  the  Cherubs  and  Seraphs,  have  lot  and 


176  TE  DEUM  LAC  DA  MCS. 

part  in  this  great  task  of  praise.  Notice  the 
processional  character  of  the  whole  picture. 
First,  the  glorious  company  of  the  Apostles  mov- 
ing with  that  dignified  tread  which  befits  lead- 
ers; next  the  Prophets,  Christian  prophets  as  I 
interpret  the  meaning  here,  such  prophets  as  we 
read  of  in  the  Book  of  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles 
to  the  Corinthians,  the  prophets  of  the  New 
Dispensation,  and,  following  these,  the  white- 
robed  Martyrs,  the  men  who  at  the  cost  of  their 
own  lives  have  been  brave  to  witness  a  good 
confession,  and  have  sealed  their  testimony  with 
their  blood.  These  three  seem  by  themselves 
a  little  army,  and  yet  they  are  but  serving  as  es- 
cort and  guard  of  honor  to  a  vast  host  that 
stretches  out,  rank  after  rank,  over  the  fields  of 
time  as  far  as  eye  can  see,  its  name  the  generous 
one  of "  Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world." 
Flandrin,  one  of  the  very  few  of  the  religiously 
minded  among  the  great  French  artists  of  our 
time,  has  caught  the  spirit  of  this  portion  of  the 
Te  Deum  in  his  decorative  treatment  of  the 
frieze  in  one  of  the  churches  of  Paris.  Beginning 
with  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  he  leads  the  long- 
column  of  the  faithful  completely  around  the 
building.  Kings  marching  on  foot,  confessors 
with  the  emblems  of  their  suffering,  bishops  and 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS.  1 77 

doctors  of  the  faith,  mothers  carrying  their 
babies  on  their  breasts  and  leading  little  children 
by  the  hand,  all  are  there  making  up  the  fulness 
of  the  blessed  company  of  the  faithful  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

Pause  a  moment  here  to  consider  why  it  is 
that  apostles,  prophets,  and  martyrs  should  be 
singled  out  for  an  especially  honorable  posi- 
tion at  the  front.  Why  do  we  see  them  march- 
ing at  the  head  of  the  column,  like  a  field  officer's 
staff  a  few  feet  in  advance  of  the  rank  and  file? 
For  this  reason,  I  am  disposed  to  think,  namely, 
that  in  their  characters,  as  these  are  defined 
by  their  titles,  prophets,  apostles,  and  martyrs 
completely  represent  the  whole  human  side  of 
religion.  The  three  great  elements  of  the  godly 
life,  as  man  takes  cognizance  of  godliness,  are 
vision,  action,  and  passion.  Vision  comes  first. 
In  order  so  much  as  to  begin  to  be  religious  we 
must  catch  at  least  some  glimpse  of  the  Divine 
Majesty,  we  must  have  an  inkling,  if  no  more,  of 
what  God  is  like.  Here  is  where  the  function  of 
the  prophet  comes  in.  The  prophet  is  one  who 
has  been  privileged  to  discern  the  truth  of  God, 
and  who,  because  he  has  discerned  it,  is  able  to 
communicate  it  to  others.  The  Seer  sees,  and 
having  seen  speaks  and  tells.     It  is  plain,  there- 


178  TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

fere,  that  without  prophecy,  or  the  unveiling  of 
the  truth  of  God,  religion,  or  the  service  of  God, 
cannot  so  much  as  begin.  But  no  sooner  has  the 
heavenly  vision  been  vouchsafed  than  action,  the 
second  of  the  three  great  elements  of  religion, 
is  seen  to  be  in  order.  Thus  we  have,  along  with 
our  prophets  or  men  of  vision,  apostles  or  men 
of  action,  and  not  only  are  the  apostles  asso- 
ciated with  the  prophets,  they  are  also  in  large 
measure  dependent  on  them  for  guidance.  "  Go 
into  the  city,"  says  the  voice  of  Christ  to  the  as- 
tonished Saul,  "  Go  into  the  city  and  it  shall  be 
told  thee  what  thou  shalt  do."  The  destined 
apostle,  that  is  to  say,  must  have  the  help  of  the 
prophet  before  he  can  see  his  path.  But  not  ac- 
tion only,  there  is  the  third  element,  passion,  or 
suffering,  and  this  the  martyrs  represent.  Saul, 
singled  out,  in  the  providence  of  God,  to  be- 
come martyr  and  apostle  in  one,  went  into  the 
city  as  he  was  bid,  and  it  was  showed  him  there 
not  only  what  he  must  do  but  also  what  great 
things  he  should  suffer  for  Christ's  sake.  Yes, 
we  need  them  all  in  the  Church  of  God,  all  three 
of  the  contingents,  the  goodly  one,  the  glorious 
one,  and  the  white-robed  one;  we  need  them  and 
we  have  them.  Did  you  ever  notice  that  this 
whole  portion  of  the  Te  Dcum  is  in  the  present 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  1 79 

tense  ?  It  does  not  read  "  have  praised  thee; ' 
it  does  not  read  "  shall  praise  thee,"  it  reads 
simply  "  praise  thee."  This  co-operant  adoration 
is  a  thing  that  is  forever  going  on;  there  is  no 
pause  or  lull;  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs  are  still 
bringing  day  by  day  their  tribute.  We  hear  a 
great  deal,  and  rightly  enough,  of  Apostolical 
Succession;  but  what  of  the  succession  of  the 
prophets  and  the  succession  of  the  martyrs  ? 
Are  not  they  real  also  ?  Yes,  there  are  still  men 
of  vision  whom  God  makes  His  instruments  in 
carrying  out  Christ's  promise  that  the  spirit 
should  lead  us  into  all  the  truth;  and  there  are 
still  men  of  that  heroic  mould  in  which  Stephen 
and  Polycarp  were  cajt,  valiant  to  suffer  rather 
than  let  the  truth  suffer,  ready  to  die  rather  than 
see  Christ  betrayed.  "  My  race,"  said  an  Ar- 
menian woman  the  other  day,  half  mournfully 
half  proudly,  "  my  race  is  accustomed  to  martyr- 
dom." And  what  is  the  truth  to  which  these 
consenting  voices  bear  witness  ?  Under  what 
name  are  these  New  Testament  men,  these 
martyrs,  prophets,  and  apostles,  "ound  praising 
God  ?  What  is  it  that  Holy  Church  throughout 
all  the  world  acknowledges  ?  Why  simply  this, 
that  God  is  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost — a 
barren  formula,  so  some  insist;  the  true  interpre- 


180  TE  DEUM  LA  U DAM  US. 

tation,  as  others  believe,  of  that  mystic,  Holy, 
Holy,  Holy,  under  which  the  Hebrew  Church 
dimly  shadowed  forth  the  Christian  name  of 
God. 

"  What  dost  thou  chiefly  learn  in  these  Ar- 
ticles of  thy  Belief  ?  "  asks  the  Catechist  of  the 
child  who  has  just  been  repeating  the  Apostles' 
Creed. 

"  First,  I  learn,"  answers  the  child,  "  to  believe 
in  God  the  Father,  who  hath  made  me  and  all 
the  world. 

"  Secondly,  in  God  the  Son,  who  hath  re- 
deemed me  and  all  mankind. 

"  Thirdly,  in  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  sanc- 
tifieth  me  and  all  the  people  of  God." 

Sonorous  language  this;  and  a  good  commen- 
tary on  the  words, 

The  Father  of  an  infinite  Majesty  ; 
Thine  adorable  true  and  only  Son  ; 
Also  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Comforter. 

II.  Our  study  of  the  first  portion  of  the  Te 
Deum,  the  act  of  worship  as  1  called  it,  is  done. 
We  pass  to  the  second  section,  the  act  of  faith. 

Thou  art  the  King  of  Glory  ;  0  Christ. 
Thou  art  the  everlasting  Son:  of  the  Father, 

When  thou  tookest  upon  thee  to  deliver  man  :   thou  didst  humble 
thyself  to  be  born  of  a  Virgin. 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  l8l 

When  thou  hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of  death  :  thou  didst 
open  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers. 

Thou  sittest  at  the  right  hand  of  God  :  in  the  glory  of  the 
Father. 

We  believe  that  thou  shalt  come  :  to  be  our  Judge. 

We  therefore  pray  thee  help  thy  servants  :  whom  thou  hast  re- 
deemed with  thy  precious  blood. 

Make  them  to  be  numbered  with  thy  Saints  :  in  glory  everlasting. 

You  see  at  a  glance  how  this  passage,  taken 
by  itself,  is  a  complete  whole,  with  a  dignified 
beginning  and  an  equally  dignified  ending.  It 
is  a  hymn  to  Christ  couched  in  strongly  dog- 
matic terms.  I  see  no  reason  \,hy  it  should  not 
be  regarded  as  the  probable  core  or  nucleus 
around  which  the  Te  Deum  grew  up  into  what 
it  is,  just  as  the  Apostles'  Creed  grew  up  around 
the  baptismal  formula  and  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis 
around  the  Christmas  Angels'  hymn.  In  the 
famous  letter  which  Pliny  the  younger  wrote  to 
the  Emperor  Trajan,  a  document  of  surpassing 
interest  because  among  the  earliest  of  those  that 
throw  light  upon  the  life  of  the  primitive  Church 
from  outside  sources,  the  writer  speaks  of  certain 
Christians  whom  he  had  put  under  arrest  as 
follows : 

"  They  affirm  that  the  whole  of  their  fault  of 
error  lay  in  this — that  they  were  wont  to  meet 
together  on  a  stated  day  before  it  was  light,  and 


1 82  TE  DRUM  LAUDAMUS. 

sing  among  themselves  alternately  a  hymn  to 
Christ  as  to  God,  and  bind  themselves  by  an  oath 
not  to  the  commission  of  any  wickedness,  but 
not  to  be  guilty  of  theft  or  robbery  or  adultery, 
never  to  falsify  their  word,  nor  to  deny  a  pledge 
committed  to  them  when  called  upon  to  redeem 
it.  When  these  things  were  performed,  it  was 
their  custom  to  separate  and  then  to  come  to- 
gether again  to  a  meal  which  they  ate  in  common 
without  any  disorder;  but  this  they  had  forborne 
since  the  publication  of  my  edict,  by  which,  ac- 
cording to  your  command,  I  prohibited  assem- 
blies." 

There  would  seem  to  be  nothing  violent  in  the 
supposition  that  this,  "  Thou  art  the  King  of 
Glory,"  which,  as  we  have  seen,  constitutes  the 
very  heart  of  the  Te  Deum,  may  have  been,  in 
one  or  another  form,  the  identical  hymn  to  Christ 
as  God,  the  antiphonal  singing  of  which  Pliny  so 
naively  describes  as  constituting  the  central 
feature  of  the  Church's  Morning  Prayer.  It  need 
not  be  insisted  that  in  every  part  of  the  Empire 
the  hymn  was  sung  in  precisely  the  same  words; 
to  verbal  uniformity  of  that  sort  not  even  the 
Apostles'  Creed  itself  can  lay  claim.  Our  his- 
toric sense  is  satisfied  if,  in  a  general  way,  we  are 
permitted  to  trace  connection  between  this  cen- 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMCS.  1 83 

tral  theme  of  the  Te  Deum  and  the  hymn  which 
Pliny's  Christians  sang,  there  in  far  Bithynia  at 
break  of  clay.  We  resume  our  study  of  the  text. 
The  expression,  "  King  of  Glory,"  comes  from 
the  24th  Psalm,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  what- 
ever as  to  the  purport  of  it  in  its  author's  mind. 
"  Who  is  this  King  of  Glory?  "  asks  the  Psalmist, 
after  having  bidden  the  everlasting  doors  lift  that 
He  may  enter;  "  Who  is  this  King  of  Glory?  " 
And  this  is  the  answer  with  which  he  himself 
supplies  us,  "  The  Lord  of  Hosts,  He  is  the  King 
of  Glory." 

These  salutatory  words,  therefore,  with  which 
the  Rex  gloriae  Christe  opens,  bear  a  clear  wit- 
ness that  the  hymn  is  indeed,  as  Pliny  said,  ad- 
dressed to  Christ  as  God.  The  note  of  divinity 
is  unmistakably  struck.  And  the  next  verse,  the 
fifteenth,  carries  it  on,  "  Thou  art  the  everlasting 
Son  of  the  Father."  Here  the  word  in  the  Latin 
is  sempiternns,  which  does  not  necessarily  con- 
note eternity,  though  in  no  measure  inconsistent 
with  that  thought.  Sempitcrnus  means  pre- 
cisely what  the  English  of  the  Prayer  Book 
makes  it  mean,  namely,  lasting  forever,  and  if 
the  verse  stood  alone  there  would  be  nothing  to 
forbid  our  putting  an  Arian  interpretation  upon 
it.     "  Yes,"  one  might  say,  "  the  Sonship  is  to 


184  TE  DRUM  LAUDAMUS. 

last  forever,  that  is  true;  but,  all  the  same,  it  be- 
gan in  time.  That  it  is  to  be  '  to  everlasting  ' 
does  not  necessarily  prove  that  '  from  everlast- 
ing '  it  has  been." 

But  the  very  next  verse  reads  as  if  it  had  been 
designed  of  set  purpose  to  protect  us  against  any 
such  misunderstanding  of  the  hymn's  teaching 
as  this,  for  it  runs,  "  When  thou  tookest  upon 
thee  to  deliver  man:  thou  didst  humble  thyself 
to  be  born  of  a  Virgin."  Had  the  Son  of  Mary 
not  been  pre-existent  before  His  coming  here, 
He  could  not  thus  deliberately  have  given  Him- 
self in  advance  to  the  accomplishment  of  a 
formed  and  settled  purpose. 

True,  it  may  be  urged  that  pre-existence  does 
not  of  itself  necessarily  imply  eternal  pre-exist- 
ence; but  against  this  objection  it  is  enough  to 
set  the  general  tone  of  the  whole  hymn,  which 
the  compilers  of  the  King's  Chapel  Liturgy 
would  not  have  found  it  necessary  to  Arianize 
had  it  been  Arian  already. 

But  we  must  not  pass  this  sixteenth  verse 
without  taking  notice  of  a  very  interesting  varia- 
tion in  the  text.  In  the  version  preserved  to  us 
in  an  old  Irish  Service-book  known  as  the  Bangor 
Antiphonary  and  now  on  the  shelves  of  the  Am- 
brosian  Library  at  Milan,  instead  of  the  reading 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  1 85 

"  When  thou  tookest  upon  thee  to  deliver  man," 
we  have,  "  When  thou  tookest  upon  thee  man, 
in  order  that  thou  mightest  deliver  the  world." 
This  suggests  that  fine  phrase  in  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  the  "  taking  of  the  manhood  into  God," 
and  as  a  side-light  upon  the  true  and  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  verse  as  we  have  it  is  very  valuable. 
Certain  critics  of  the  recent  revision  of  the  Prayer 
Book  who  scent  "  Americanism  "  at  every  turn 
are  sorry  that  the  language  of  the  latter  half  of 
this  verse  was  not  restored,  when  we  had  the  op- 
portunity in  hand,  to  the  form  familiar  to  us  in 
the  English  Book;  but  to  this  it  is  a  sufficient 
reply  to  observe  that  in  modern  English  the  verb 
"  abhor  "  has  acquired  a  tinge  of  meaning  that 
did  not  attach  to  it  when  it  was  first  used  as 
the  equivalent  of  the  Latin  "  horreo,"  a  word 
wholly  devoid,  I  am  safe  in  saying,  of  that  sug- 
gestion of  hatred  or  disgust  which  is  inseparable 
from  "  abhor  "  as  we  employ  it  in  present-day 
speech. 

In  the  next  verse  we  have  a  deeply  interesting 
reminiscence  of  St.  Paul.  "  When  thou  hadst 
overcome  the  sharpness  of  death:  thou  didst  open 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  believers."  In 
place  of  this  abstract  word  "  sharpness,"  signify- 
ing a  quality,  put  the  concrete  noun  "  needle  " 


1 86  TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

or  "  sting,"  and  you  will  have  not  only  a  more 
accurate  translation  of  the  Latin  aculcus,  but 
also  a  singularly  helpful  clew  to  the  real  mean- 
ing of  the  verse.  For  what  is  the  needle  or  sting 
of  death?  As  often  as  we  have  taken  part  in  the 
solemn  burial  office  of  the  Church  we  have  heard 
it  clearly  defined.  "  The  sting  of  death  is  sin." 
That  is  the  goad  which  Thanatos,  prince  of  the 
nether  world,  carries  in  his  hand  for  bauble.  So 
then  what  Christ  overcame  upon  the  cross,  was 
not  merely,  as  the  careless  reader  of  this  verse 
might  infer,  the  anguish  of  dissolution,  it  was  the 
power  of  sin.  He  thus  cuts  away,  like  the  prince 
in  the  legend,  the  dense  thicket  that  has  blocked 
approach  to  the  royal  palace,  slays  the  dragon, 
and  opens  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to  all  be- 
lievers. You  notice  how  wonderfully  the  sen- 
tence, when  thus  interpreted,  chimes  in  with  the 
following  passage  from  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  "  Forasmuch  then  as 
the  children  are  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  he 
also  himself  likewise  took  part  of  the  same  " 
(humbled  himself  to  be  born  of  a  Virgin),  "  that 
through  death  he  might  destroy  him  that  hath 
the  power  of  death,  that  is  the  devil,  and  deliver 
them  who  through  fear  of  death  were  all  their 
life-time  subject  to  bondage."     The  dogmatic 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  1 87 

harmony  of  the  two  passages  could  scarcely  be 
made  more  complete. 

"  Thou  sittest  at  the  right  hand  of  God  in  the 
glory  of  the  Father."  We  are  not  to  lay  stress 
upon  the  sitting  posture  as  signifying  anything 
more  than  simply  the  plenitude  of  power.  The 
session  does  not  mean  inactivity;  what  it  really 
symbolizes  is  puissance,  majesty.  The  throne 
or  chair  is  the  emblem  of  a  strength  so  strong 
that  it  can  exert  itself  without  apparent  effort. 
Stephen,  at  the  climax  of  his  impassioned  speech 
before  his  judges,  sees  Jesus,  not  sitting,  but 
standing  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  And  so  the 
Church  emphasizes  its  freedom  from  the  dead- 
ness  of  the  letter  both  of  the  Creed  and  of  the  Te 
Deum  by  bidding  us  address  the  Lord  Christ  on 
St.  Stephen's  Day  as  one  who  standcth  "  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  to  succor  all  those  who  suffer 
for  him." 

Yes,  it  would  bode  ill  for  Christendom  were 
He  \vho  is  its  Prince  and  Leader  sitting  idly  by 
upon  a  sapphire  throne  a  calm  observer  of  our 
battle,  a  quiet  critic  of  our  struggle  and  no  more. 
So  Epicurean  an  interpretation  of  the  great  doc- 
trine of  Christ's  session  at  the  right  hand  of  God 
would  be  discouraging  indeed.  Such  a  picture 
has  altogether  too  much  in  common  with  the 


1 88  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

old  Olympic  conception  of  the  gods  as  segre- 
gated in  their  selfish  heaven — "  careless  of  man- 
kind." 

For  they  He  beside  their  nectar  and  the  bolts  are  hurled 

Far  below  them  in  the  valleys,  and  the  clouds  are  lightly  curled 

Round  their  golden  houses. 

Nothing  like  that,  we  may  be  sure,  can  truth- 
fully be  said  of  the  heaven  where  Christ  lives 
seated  and  regnant  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  It 
were  blasphemy  to  think  of  Him  as  so  self-cen- 
tred in  His  own  beatitude  that  He  can 


Smile  in  secret  looking  over  wasted  lands, 

l>light   and   famine,  plague   and   earthquake,  roaring  deeps  and 

fiery  sands, 
Clanging  fights  and  flaming  towns  and  sinking  ships  and  praying 

hands. 


No,  He  is  there  not  to  enjoy  the  apathy  of  an 
ignoble  rest,  but  to  stretch  forth  the  right  hand 
of  His  majesty  to  be  our  defence  against  all  our 
enemies.  Not  only  so,  but  the  hour  draws  near 
when  we  are  to  know  this.  At  evening-time  it 
shall  be  light,  and  even  now  the  clouded  day  of 
man's  long  pilgrimage  begins  to  brighten,  and  in 
the  glow  of  sunset  there  is  heard  his  closing 
strophe  of  the  "  Hymn  to  Christ  as  God  " — 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AMI'S.  1 89 

We  believe  that  thou  shalt  come  to  be  our  Judge. 
We  therefore  pray  thee,  help  thy  servants,  whom  thou  hast  re- 
deemed with  thy  precious  blood. 
Make  them  to  be  numbered  with  thy  Saints  in  glory  everlasting. 

"  Therefore  "  is  an  unusual  word  in  hymns.  It 
savors  more  of  what  is  logical  than  of  what  is 
metrical.  And  yet  if  it  be  logic  that  we  have 
here  it  is  logic  of  a  sort  that  finds  its  parallel  in 
that  most  rythmical  of  formularies,  the  Litany, 
for  there,  as  here,  we  see  prayer  based  upon  a 
solid  substratum  of  historic  fact  as  its  reason 
why.  In  the  Litany  we  intercede  with  Christ 
because  of  what  happened  in  His  earthly  life 
and  plead  before  Him  all  the  memories  of  the 
incarnation. 

"  By  thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  thy 
Cross  and  Passion;  by  thy  precious  Death  and 
Burial;  by  thy  glorious  Resurrection  and  Ascen- 
sion    .     .     .     Good  Lord  deliver  us." 

How  differs  this  from,  Thou  tookest  upon  thee 
to  deliver  man;  Thou  didst  overcome;  Thou 
hast  opened  the  kingdom,  Thou  dost  sit  at  the 
right  hand,  YVe  believe  that  thou  shalt  come — 

Therefore,  therefore,  we  pray  thee,  help  thy 
servants.     The  parallelism  is  complete. 

III.  The  third  and  final  section  of  the  Te 
Deum  is  supplicatory  in  its  character,  and  is,  as 


I90  TE  DRUM  LAUDAMUS. 

I  have  already  intimated,  mainly  made  up  of 
quotations  from  the  Psalms. 

O  Lord  save  thy  people  ;  and  bless  Thine  heritage, 
Govern  them  and  lift  them  up  forever. 

This,  you  observe,  is  a  very  close  paraphrase  of 
the  last  verse  of  the  twenty-eighth  Psalm,  which 
in  King  James's  version,  runs,  "  Save  thy  people 
and  bless  thine  inheritance,  rule  them  also  and 
lift  them  up  forever,"  and  in  the  versicles  which 
follow  upon  the  Creed  in  our  Order  for  Evening 
Prayer  we  catch  the  same  note. 

The  one  hundred  and  forty-fifth  Psalm  gives 
us,  in  its  second  verse,  the  original  of  what  fol- 
lows next,  for  the  resemblance  between  "  Every 
day  will  I  give  thanks  unto  thee  and  praise  thy 
name  for  ever  and  ever,"  to  "  Day  by  day  we 
magnify  thee,  and  we  worship  thy  Name:  ever, 
world  without  end  "  is  too  close  to  have  been 
accidental. 

Thomas  Hobbes  of  Malmesbury,  the  curmud- 
geon among  moralists,  but  a  past  master  of  word- 
fence,  draws  a  nice  distinction  between  praising 
and  magnifying.  "  The  form  of  speech,"  he  says, 
"  whereby  men  signify  their  opinion  of  the  good- 
ness of  anything  is  praise;  that  whereby  they 
signify  the  power  and  greatness  of  anything  is 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US.  191 

magnifying."  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Te 
Deum  that  these  two  strains  are  blended  in  it 
throughout.  God  is  magnified  in  His  character 
of  Creator,  and  praised  in  His  character  of  Re- 
deemer. The  song  is  a  song  both  of  Moses  and 
of  the  Lamb.  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy 
works,  Lord  God  Almighty,"  is  the  one  strain. 
"  Just  and  true  are  thy  ways,  thou  King  of 
saints,"  is  the  other. 

The  next  verse,  "  Vouchsafe,  O  Lord,  to  keep 
us  this  day  without  sin,"  suggests  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  the  next  after  that,  "  O  Lord  have 
mercy  upon  us,  have  mercy  upon  us,"  the  third 
verse  of  the  Psalm,  "  Unto  thee  lift  I  up  mine 
eyes,  O  thou  that  dwellest  in  the  heavens." 

The  28th  verse,  "  O  Lord,  let  thy  mercy  be 
upon  us,  as  our  trust  is  in  thee,"  breathes  the 
spirit  of  the  Psalms  even  though  it  may  not 
be  traceable  to  any  definite  original.  It  is 
found  in  a  slightly  altered  form  in  the  English 
Litany,  where  it  directly  precedes  the  Lord's 
prayer. 

And  now  that  we  have  reached  the  last  verse 
of  the  Te  Deum,  I  bid  you  notice  the  very  strik- 
ing transition  which  is  effected  in  it  from  the 
first  person  plural  to  the  first  person  singular. 
"  We  "  it  has  been  hitherto,  but  now,  "  O  Lord 


192  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS. 

in  thee  have  I  trusted,  I  shall  never  be  con- 
founded." 

In  this  respect  the  Te  Deum  is  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  Miserere,  which  is  throughout  the 
utterance  of  the  individual  soul  until  the  very 
end,  when  it  breaks  out  with  a  recognition  of 
the  Church,  "  O  be  favorable  and  gracious  unto 
Sion."  The  Te  Deum,  on  the  other  hand,  starts 
in  upon  the  churchly  or  social  key,  and  takes 
no  note  whatsoever  of  the  individual  until  the 
close.  Up  to  this  point  all  has  been,  as  we 
may  say,  multitudinous.  The  picture  before  our 
eyes  has  been  a  panorama  of  the  armies  of 
the  living  God.  But  now,  at  the  very  end,  we 
catch  the  cry  of  the  single  solitary  soul.  Steal- 
ing away  from  her  association  with  the  unnum- 
bered and  innumerable  host,  forgetful  for  the 
moment  of  all  in  the  wide  universe  save  her 
Maker  and  herself,  she  cries,  "  O  Lord  in  Thee, 
Thee  whom  the  angels  and  archangels  hymn, 
Thee  to  whom  Heavens  and  Powers,  Cherubs 
and  Seraphs  cry,  Thee  whom  Apostles  praise, 
and  Prophets  and  Martyrs  and  the  Holy  Church, 
in  Thee  have  I,  poor,  insignificant,  worthless 
little  1,  in  Thee  have  I  trusted.  I  shall  not  be 
forever  perplexed." 

That  "  1  shall  not  be  forever  perplexed  "  is  a 


TE  DEUM  LAUD  AMU S.  1 93 

more  accurate  rendering  of  non  confandar  in 
cetemum,  than  "  Let  me  never  be  confounded  " 
all  scholars  must  acknowledge.  And  how  much 
it  adds  to  the  devotional  value  of  the  hymn  when 
we  permit  it  thus  to  culminate  in  an  indomitable 
trust.  It  is  in  the  spirit  of  Job's  "  Though  he 
slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him."  "  Distressed  I 
may  be,"  the  singer  seems  to  say,  "  harassed  by 
anxieties,  compassed  about  with  fears,  beset  by 
doubts  and  by  misgivings,  nevertheless,  I  know 
whom  I  have  believed,  God  has  never  failed  me 
in  the  past,  and  it  simply  cannot  be  that  to  eter- 
nity I  shall  have  dimness  for  my  portion  and  my 
lot.  Xo,  no,  O  Lord,  in  thee  have  I  trusted,  I 
shall  not  for  ever  be  confounded."  And  so  Te 
Deum  ends  in  what  good  Jeremy  Taylor  calls, 
"  the  confidence  of  a  certain  faith,  the  comfort 
of  a  reasonable,  religious,  and  holy  hope." 

Do  you  complain  that  I  have  pulled  the  song 
to  pieces  and  by  too  rigid  an  analysis  have  dis- 
membered what  you  have  always  found  pleasure 
in  accounting  one  self-consistent  whole?  That 
may  be  the  temporary  impression  left  by  our 
study  of  the  text,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  it  will 
be  the  permanent  and  final  one.  The  time  will 
come,  and  that  soon,  when  the  real  unity  of  the 
hymn  will  seem  to  you  all  the  more  marvellous 
13 


194  TE  DEUM  LAUD  AM  US. 

because  of  your  having  acquainted  yourself  with 
its  diversity. 

A  trilogy  has  oneness  back  of  its  threeness; 
it  would  not  be  a  trilogy  if  it  had  not.  And  so 
what  I  have  called  the  act  of  praise,  the  act  of 
faith,  and  the  act  of  prayer,  blend  into  unity  the 
moment  it  is  discerned  that  all  three  of  them  are 
fastened  by  indissoluble  bonds  to  the  great  cen- 
tral truth  of  the  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Unity?  Yes,  the  Te  Deum  has  unity,  the  very 
best  sort  of  unity.  What  gives  an  old  Gothic 
Cathedral,  Lincoln,  Canterbury,  or  York,  unity? 
Most  assuredly  not  the  fact  of  the  original  de- 
sign's having  sprung  complete  out  of  the  brain 
of  a  definite  person  known  to  history,  for  that  is 
just  the  thing  that  did  not  happen.  To  name 
the  architect  of  any  one  of  these  three  famous 
Churches  would  be  as  impossible  as  it  is  to-day 
to  name  the  author  of  the  Te  Deum.  The 
mediaeval  Cathedral  was  a  growth. 

In  such  a  building  we  discern  precisely  the 
same  composite  character  as  respects  structural 
origins  that  we  have  noticed  in  our  hymn.  Ex- 
amine the  building  in  detail,  follow  your  guide 
into  every  side-chapel,  every  retiring  angle,  every 
groined  recess,  and  you  will  feel  as  if  variety  and 
inconsistency  were  inwrought  into  the  very  be- 


TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS.  1 95 

ing  of  the  fabric.  The  nave,  it  may  be,  is  Norman, 
the  transepts  Early  English,  the  choir  late  per- 
pendicular. One  pious  Bishop,  you  are  told, 
added  this  peculiarity,  another,  his  successor, 
added  that.  At  each  step  the  eye  falls  on  some- 
thing different  and  the  impression  received  is 
one  of  utter  incongruity.  But  when  you  have 
done  with  your  analytic  examination  of  the  edi- 
fice, go  and  take  your  stand  at  the  great  western 
entrance  and  forgetting  all  thought  of  detail,  en- 
deavor to  apprehend  and  to  appreciate  the  whole 
beautiful  idea.  See  it  as  it  lies  before  you  one 
mighty  cross  of  stone.  Look  through  the  long 
vista  walled  and  arched  like  an  avenue  of  ice- 
encrusted  elms,  note  the  great  bars  of  sunlight 
falling  slant  across  the  spaces  of  the  distant  choir. 
And  if  at  that  moment  the  voice  of  some  musical 
response,  some  snatch  of  Psalm  or  Litany  hap- 
pen to  strike  your  ear,  you  will  feel  the  influence 
of  a  unity  indescribable  and  the  building,  from 
having  seemed  the  handiwork  of  many  men  and 
divers  generations,  will  become  to  you  beholding 
it  simply  the  present  temple  of  the  ever-living 
God.    Of  such  sort  is  the  unity  of  the  Te  Deum. 


It  seems  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  the 
Church  Club  is  not  responsible  for  any  indi- 
vidual opinions  on  points  not  ruled  by  the 
Church,  which  the  learned  theologians  who 
have  been  good  enough  to  lecture  under  its 
auspices  may  have  expressed. 


